Nicolaus Copernicus Quotes - Page 3

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• In first place we must observe that the universe is spherical. This is either because that figure is the most perfect, as not being articulated, but whole and complete in itself; or because it is the most capacious and therefore best suited for that which is to contain and preserve all things.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Perfect, Firsts, Astronomy

  7 Copy quote

• I therefore took this opportunity and also began to consider the possibility that the Earth moved. Although it seemed an absurd opinion, nevertheless, because I knew that others before me had been granted the liberty of imagining whatever circles they wished to represent the phenomena of the stars, I thought that I likewise would readily be allowed to test whether, by assuming some motion of the Earth's, more dependable representations than theirs could be found for the revolutions of the heavenly spheres.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Stars, Science, Opportunity

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1976). “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, David & Charles Publishers

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• Perhaps there will be prattlers who, although completely ignorant of mathematics, nevertheless take it upon themselves to pass judgment on mathematical questions, and on account of some passage in Scripture, badly distorted to their purpose, will dare to censure and assail what I have presented here.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  God, Faith, Hope

  6 Copy quote

• When, therefore, I had long considered this uncertainty of traditional mathematics, it began to weary me that no more definite explanation of the movement of the world-machine established in our behalf by the best and most systematic builder of all, existed among the philosophers who had studied so exactly in other respects the minutest details in regard to the sphere.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Long, Details, Machines

  "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Preface Letter to Pope Paul III)". Book by Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543.

  6 Copy quote

• So if the worth of the arts were measured by the matter with which they deal, this art-which some call astronomy, others astrology, and many of the ancients the consummation of mathematics-would be by far the most outstanding. This art which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathe matics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Art, Men, Astrology

  7 Copy quote

• Not only the phenomena of the others followed from this, but also it so bound together both the order and magnitude of all the planets and the spheres and the heaven itself, that in no single part could one thing be altered without confusion among the other parts and in all the universe.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Order, Confusion, Heaven

  "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Preface Letter to Pope Paul III)". Book by Nicolaus Copernicus, 1543.

  9 Copy quote

• Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Mean, Looks, Movement

  William Caxton, Jean Calvin, Nicolaus Copernicus, John Knox, Edmund Spenser (1938). “Prefaces and prologues to famous books”

  24 Copy quote

• The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Stars, Moving, Mean

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1976). “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, David & Charles Publishers

  4 Copy quote

• Since, then, there is no objection to the mobility of the Earth, I think it must now be considered whether several motions are appropriate for it, so that it can be regarded as one of the wandering stars. For the fact that it is not the centre of all revolutions is made clear by the apparent irregular motion of the wandering stars, and their variable distances from the Earth, which cannot be understood in a circle having the same centre as the Earth.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Stars, Distance, Science

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1976). “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, David & Charles Publishers

  5 Copy quote

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