The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Heaven
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
—Galileo Galilei
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.
—Galileo Galilei
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Discovery, Understanding, The Truth
Philosophy is written in this grand book – I mean the Universe – which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Philosophy
But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Words
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Science, Authority
The laws of Nature are written in the language of mathematics…the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Mathematics
Doubt is the father of invention.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Doubt
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.
—Galileo Galilei
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still slowly ripen a fruit tree, as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Nature, Gardening
Wine is sunlight, held together by water.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Alcohol, Light, Drinking, One liners, Wine
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Attitude, Ignorance
Infinities and indivisibles transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness; Imagine what they are when combined.
—Galileo Galilei
Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Explanation
We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Teach, People, Love
I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
—Galileo Galilei
Topics: Stars
The difficulties in the study of the infinite arise because we attempt, with our finite minds, to discuss the infinite, assigning to it those properties which we give to the finite and limited; but this…is wrong, for we cannot speak of infinite quantities as being the one greater or less than or equal to another.
—Galileo Galilei
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Isaac Newton English Physicist
- Leonardo da Vinci Italian Polymath
- Carl Sagan American Astronomer
- Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
- Dante Alighieri Italian Poet, Philosopher
- Federico Fellini Italian Filmmaker
- Luciano Pavarotti Italian Tenor
- Sophia Loren Italian Actor
- Michelangelo Italian Painter
- Benito Mussolini Italian Head of State
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