Johannes Kepler Quotes

...wheresoever the earth may be placed, or whithersoever it may be carried by its animal faculty, heavy bodies will always be carried towards it.

I especially love analogies, my most faithful masters, acquainted with all the secrets of nature… One should make great use of them.

Either... the moving intelligences of the planets are weakest in those that are farthest from the sun, or... there is one moving intelligence in the sun, the common center, forcing them all round, but those most violently which are nearest, and that it languishes in some sort and grows weaker at the most distant, because of the remoteness and the attenuation of the virtue.

If the earth were not round, heavy bodies would not tend from every side in a straight line towards the center of the earth, but to different points from different sides.

I too play with symbols... but I play in such a way that I do not forget that I am playing. For nothing is proved by symbols... unless by sure reasons it can be demonstrated that they are not merely symbolic but are descriptions of the ways in which the two things are connected and of the causes of this connection.

The heavenly bodies are nothing but a continuous song for several voices (perceived by the intellect, not by the ear); a music which... sets landmarks in the immeasurable flow of time. It is therefore, no longer surprising that man, in imitation of his creator, has at last discovered the art of figured song, which was unknown to the ancients. Man wanted to reproduce the continuity of cosmic time... to obtain a sample test of the delight of the Divine Creator in His works, and to partake of his joy by making music in the imitation of God.

Nature uses as little as possible of anything.

My goal is to show that the heavenly machine is not a kind of divine living being but similar to a clockwork insofar as all the manifold motions are taken care of by one single absolutely simple magnetic bodily force, as in a clockwork all motion is taken care of by a simple weight. And indeed I also show how this physical representation can be presented by calculation and geometrically.

No operation of addition or subtraction gives rise to diversity, but all are equally related to their pair of Terms, or Elements.

I used to measure the skies, now I measure the shadows of Earth.
Sky-bound was the mind, earthbound the body rests.

When ships to sail the void between the stars have been built, there will step forth men to sail these ships.

He who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which nature does not display or even will publish genuine miracles of nature without regard to deeper causes is a spiritually corrupt person… With the best of intentions I publicly speak to the crowd (which is eager for things new) on the subject of what is to come.

Gravity is a mutual affection between cognate bodies towards union or conjunction (similar in kind to the magnetic virtue), so that the earth attracts a stone much rather than the stone seeks the earth.

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

[W]ithout proper experiments I conclude nothing...