It always seems to me extreme rashness on the part of some when they want to make human abilities the measure of what nature can do. On the contrary,… - Galileo Galilei

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It always seems to me extreme rashness on the part of some when they want to make human abilities the measure of what nature can do. On the contrary, there is not a single effect in nature, even the least that exists, such that the most ingenious theorists can arrive at a complete understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would recognize that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing.

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About Galileo Galilei

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution during the Renaissance.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei Galileo G. Galilei Galilei
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Shorter versions of this quote

There is not a single effect in Nature, not even the least that exists, such that the most ingenious theorists can ever arrive at a complete understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is attained, would recognise that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing.

This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything.

Additional quotes by Galileo Galilei

To our natural and human reason, I say that these terms ‘large,’ ‘small,’ ‘immense,’ ‘minute,’ etc. are not absolute but relative; the same thing in comparison with various others may be called at one time ‘immense’ and at another ‘imperceptible.

I do not feel obliged to believe that same God, who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. — — — God does not intend to forgo the use of sense, reason, and intellect that he has gifted us, but not to use in a wrong direction and the evil way. God has also enriched the knowledge of the devil that uses in a wrong way.

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Philosophy is written in this grand book, which stands continually open before our eyes (I say the 'Universe'), but can not be understood without first learning to comprehend the language and know the characters as it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which it is impossible to humanly understand a word; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.

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