To discover a law is the highest achievement of the human spiri

The universe is a grand book written in the language of mathematics.

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.

The harnessing to a rational pursuit of the immense psychic energies derived from an irrational obsession seems to be another secret of genius, at least of genius of a certain type.

If my false figures came near to the facts, this happened merely by chance … These comments are not worth printing. Yet it gives me pleasure to remember how many detours I had to make, along how many walls I had to grope in the darkness of my ignorance until I found the door which lets in the light of the truth … In such manner did I dream of the truth.

Mathematics is the key to understanding the universe.

He who is in harmony with the universe is not alone.

If the earth should cease to attract its waters to itself all the waters of the sea would be raised and would flow to the body of the moon.

And I cherish more than anything else the Analogies, my most trustworthy masters. They know all the secrets of Nature, and they ought to be least neglected in Geometry.

…Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts… and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.

A mathematical problem is never solved until it is solved in the mind.

The most important thing is to keep the mind open.

Wherever there are qualities there are likewise quantities, but not always vice versa.

It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.

O telescope, instrument of much knowledge, more precious than any sceptre!

Science is the process of discovering the nature of the world.

We cannot be sure that our ideas about the cosmos are complete.

Just as the eye was made to see colours, and the ear to hear sounds, so the human mind was made to understand, not whatever you please, but quantity.

Eyesight should learn from reason.

Great is God our Lord, great is His power and there is no end to His wisdom. Praise Him you heavens, glorify Him, sun and moon and you planets. For out of Him and through Him, and in Him are all things….. We know, oh, so little. To Him be the praise, the honor and the glory from eternity to eternity.

The stars are not in the sky; they are in your mind.

A strong and active mind can generate a variety of new ideas.

Once miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation is out of the question.

Without proper experiments I conclude nothing.

The soul of the newly born baby is marked for life by the pattern of the stars at the moment it comes into the world, unconsciously remembers it, and remains sensitive to the return of configurations of a similar kind.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

I believe only and alone in the service of Jesus Christ. In him is all refuge and solace.

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

Why are things as they are and not otherwise?

The squares of the periodic times are to each other as the cubes of the mean distances.

To look at a star is to look back in time.

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…

Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God.

Where there is matter, there is geometry.

Planets move in ellipses with the Sun at one focus.

The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

Do we ask what profit the little bird hopes for in singing?

Nature loves simplicity and unity.

I had the intention of becoming a theologian…but now I see how God is, by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for ‘the heavens declare the glory of God.

The radius vector describes equal areas in equal times.

Nature uses as little as possible of anything.

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

Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.

The wisdom of the Lord is infinite as are also His glory and His power. Ye heavens, sing His praises; sun, moon, and planets, glorify Him in your ineffable language! Praise Him, celestial harmonies, and all ye who can comprehend them! And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by Him and in Him that all exist.

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.

The harmony of the world is the music of the spheres.

The roads by which men arrive at their insights into celestial matters seem to me almost as worthy of wonder as those matters in themselves.

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.

Science is the process of thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

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