Galileo Galilei Quotes

See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.

~ Galileo Galilei

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 find it within himself.

~ Galileo Galilei

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

~ Galileo Galilei

Where the senses fail us, reason must step in.

~ Galileo Galilei

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

~ Galileo Galilei

Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is 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. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.

~ Galileo Galilei

Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.

~ Galileo Galilei

I have been in my bed for five weeks, oppressed with weakness and other infirmities from which my age, seventy four years, permits me not to hope release. Added to this (proh dolor! [O misery!]) the sight of my right eye — that eye whose labors (dare I say it) have had such glorious results — is for ever lost. That of the left, which was and is imperfect, is rendered null by continual weeping.

~ Galileo Galilei

(T)he increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts.

~ Galileo Galilei

It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.

~ Galileo Galilei

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations.

~ Galileo Galilei

The sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do.

~ Galileo Galilei

If the Earth were not subject to any change I would consider the Earth a big but useless body in universe, paralyzed...superfluous and unnatural.Those who so exalt incorruptibility, unchangeability and the like, are, I think, reduced to saying such things both because of inordinate desire they have to live for a long time and because of the terror they have of death...they do not realize that if men were immortal, they would have never come into the world.

~ Galileo Galilei

Surely it is a great thing to increase the numerous host of fixed stars previously visible to the unaided vision, adding countless more which have never before been seen, exposing these plainly to the eye in numbers ten times exceeding the old and familiar stars.

~ Galileo Galilei

And, believe me, if I were again beginning my studies, I should follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

~ Galileo Galilei

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

~ Galileo Galilei

The nature of the human mind is such that unless it is stimulated by images of things acting upon it from without, all remembrance of them passes easily away.

~ Galileo Galilei

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

~ Galileo Galilei

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one's gaze.

~ Galileo Galilei

It vexes me when they would constrain science by the authority of the Scriptures, and yet do not consider themselves bound to answer reason and experiment.

~ Galileo Galilei

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

~ 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

If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

~ Galileo Galilei