Johannes Kepler

"The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God, and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics."

"Geometry will be a powerful instrument in our hands for knowing God's omnipotence."

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."

"Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife."

"Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."

"Where there is matter, there is geometry."

"I am merely thinking God's thoughts after Him."

"Astronomy is written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes - I mean the universe; but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written."

"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."

"The same harmony which we recognize in nature recurs on a higher level in the human soul."

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."

"I grant it to you that you have won the victory, because you have overcome me not by arguments but by prayers."

"The sun is the center of the universe, and all planets orbit around it in perfect mathematical harmony."

"Time is the image of eternity."

"What I prophesy now is not yet perhaps ready to be published; still I cannot restrain myself from disclosing it to you."

"The laws of nature are the thoughts of God."

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

"I have atoned for the small crime by the great discovery."

"If there is something I crave above all things, it is glory."

"Beauty is the splendor of truth."

"In the pursuit of truth and in the research of nature, the mind acquires a certain bent and bias which prepares it to receive the sciences in general."

"All philosophy is written in this grand book - I mean the universe - which stands continually open to our gaze."

"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."

"He who understands Ptolemy thoroughly will be far better prepared to appreciate the wisdom of the ancients."

"As the eye was made to see colors, so the ear was made to hear sounds."

"Nothing takes place in the world whose meaning is not that of some maximum or minimum."

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."

"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or He can, but does not want to."

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

"The astronomers and philosophers, those mighty intellects, were blind in one eye."