TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “The Columbia is lost; there are no survivors.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index A > Category: Abjuration

Abjuration Quotes (3 quotes)

Galileo head and shoulders on starfield, w/earth in orbit around him with quotes “Eppur si muove” (Italian)+“And yet it moves”
By legend (likely not in fact), Galileo quietly whispered this to himself, after his confession.
Eppur si muove.
And yet it does move.
Referring to the Earth. Apocryphal saying (of doubtful authenticity). By legend, Galileo whispered this to himself as he rose from kneeling after making his abjuration of heliocentricity.
No clear evidence exists that Galileo actually said these words, which may have been invented as stories about Galileo were circulated after his death. Seen in print as early as L’Abbé Irailh, Querelles Littéraires [“Literary quarrels”] (Paris, 1761), Vol. 3, 49. As cited, with great skepticism, in John Joseph Fahie, Galileo, His Life and Work (1903), 325.
Science quotes on:  |  Authenticity (5)  |  Doubtful (30)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Heliocentric Model (7)  |  Himself (461)  |  Legend (18)  |  Making (300)  |  Move (223)  |  Rose (36)  |  Whisper (11)

I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, of Florence, aged seventy years, being brought personally to judgment, and kneeling before your Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords Cardinals, General Inquisitors of the universal Christian republic against heretical depravity, having before my eyes the Holy Gospels, which I touch with my own hands, swear that I have always believed, and now believe, and with the help of God will in future believe, every article which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome holds, teaches, and preaches. But because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office altogether to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the sun is the centre and immovable, and forbidden to hold, defend, or teach the said false doctrine in any manner, and after it hath been signified to me that the said doctrine is repugnant with the Holy Scripture, I have written and printed a book, in which I treat of the same doctrine now condemned, and adduce reasons with great force in support of the same, without giving any solution, and therefore have been judged grievously suspected of heresy; that is to say, that I held and believed that the sun is the centre of the universe and is immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable; willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained toward me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me; but if I shall know any heretic, or anyone suspected of heresy, that I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be; I swear, moreover, and promise, that I will fulfil and observe fully, all the penances which have been or shall be laid on me by this Holy Office. But if it shall happen that I violate any of my said promises, oaths, and protestations (which God avert!), I subject myself to all the pains and punishments which have been decreed and promulgated by the sacred canons, and other general and particular constitutions, against delinquents of this description. So may God help me, and his Holy Gospels which I touch with my own hands. I, the above-named Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above, and in witness thereof with my own hand have subscribed this present writing of my abjuration, which I have recited word for word. At Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, June 22, 1633. I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.
Abjuration, 22 Jun 1633. In J.J. Fahie, Galileo, His Life and Work (1903), 319-321.
Science quotes on:  |  Abandon (73)  |  Against (332)  |  Assert (69)  |  Being (1276)  |  Book (413)  |  Bound (120)  |  Cardinal (9)  |  Catholic (18)  |  Christian (44)  |  Church (64)  |  Condemn (44)  |  Constitution (78)  |  Contrary (143)  |  Curse (20)  |  Denounce (6)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Eminence (25)  |  Entertain (27)  |  Error (339)  |  Eye (440)  |  Faith (209)  |  Forbidden (18)  |  Force (497)  |  Future (467)  |  General (521)  |  God (776)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happen (282)  |  Heart (243)  |  Heliocentric Model (7)  |  Heretic (8)  |  Holy (35)  |  Judgment (140)  |  Know (1538)  |  Late (119)  |  Lord (97)  |  Maintain (105)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Most (1728)  |  Myself (211)  |  Never (1089)  |  Oath (10)  |  Observe (179)  |  Office (71)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Ordinary (167)  |  Other (2233)  |  Pain (144)  |  Present (630)  |  Promise (72)  |  Punishment (14)  |  Reason (766)  |  Religion (369)  |  Remove (50)  |  Republic (16)  |  Repugnant (8)  |  Rise (169)  |  Rome (19)  |  Sacred (48)  |  Say (989)  |  Solution (282)  |  Subject (543)  |  Sun (407)  |  Support (151)  |  Suspicion (36)  |  Swear (7)  |  Teach (299)  |  Touch (146)  |  Universal (198)  |  Universe (900)  |  Will (2350)  |  Willing (44)  |  Witness (57)  |  Word (650)  |  Writing (192)  |  Year (963)

In … his humbled, kneeling surrender when he disavowed his Copernicanism, we may sense the tremendous forces attendant on the birth of modern science.
In The Birth of a New Physics (1960, rev. ed. 1985), 126.
Science quotes on:  |  Conflict (77)  |  Humble (54)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Surrender (21)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.