Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes

"The earth together with its
surrounding waters must in fact have
such a shape as its shadow reveals,
for it eclipses the moon with the arc
of a perfect circle."
1543 AD

We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun] . . . And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth.

For I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned. Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heaven as its center would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

In the midst of all dwells the Sun. For who could set this luminary in another or better place in this most glorious temple, than whence he can at one and the same time brighten the whole.

Hence I feel no shame in asserting that this whole region engirdled by the moon, and the center of the earth, traverse this grand circle amid the rest of the planets in an annual revolution around the sun. Near the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.

Those who devised the eccentrics seen thereby in large measure to have solved the problem of apparent motions with approximate calculations. But meanwhile they introduced a good many ideas which apparently contradict the first principles of uniform motion. Nor could they elicit or deduce from the eccentrics the principal consideration, that is, the structure of the universe and the true symmetry of its parts. On the contrary, their experience was just like someone taking from various places hands, feet, a head, and other pieces, very well depicted it may be, but for the representation of a single person; since these fragments would not belong to one another at all, a monster rather than a man would be put together from them.

Why therefore should we hesitate any longer to grant to it the movement which accords naturally with its firm, rather than put the whole world in a commotion — the world whose limits we do not and cannot know? And why not admit that the appearance of daily revolution belongs to the heavens but the reality belongs to the Earth? And things are as when Aeneas said in Virgil: “ We sail out of the harbor, and the land and the cities move away.” Page 23

I often considered whether there could perhaps be found a more reasonable arrangement of circles.

The earth together with its
surrounding waters must in fact have
such a shape as its shadow reveals,
for it eclipses the moon with the arc
of a perfect circle.
Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543 AD

Mathemata mathematicis scribuntur.

...Bana öyle geliyor ki, Pythagorasçılar bazılarının düşündüğü gibi, öğretilerini paylaşmaktan duydukları kıskançlıktan değil de, büyük insanlara ait böylesine güzel ve binbir zorlukla dolu keşif, maddî bir kazancı olmaksızın kalem oynatmayı sıkıcı bulan ya da başkalarının yüreklendirip örnek olmasıyla hür felsefe çalışmasına özendirilse de aklî donukluklarından ötürü filozoflar arasında tıpkı bal arılarının arasındaki erkek arılar gibi duran kişilerce hor görülmesin diye böyle yapıyordu.

If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, the writer celebrated in other ways but very little in mathematics, spoke somewhat childishly of the shape of the earth when he derided those who declared the earth had the shape of a ball. So it ought not to surprise students if such should laugh at us also. Mathematics is written for mathematicians to whom these our labors, if I am not mistaken, will appear to contribute something even to the ecclesiastical state the headship of which your Holiness now occupies.(Author's preface to de revolutionibus)

What indeed is more beautiful than heaven, which of course contains all things of beauty.