13 quotes from Italian polymath, Galileo

1. “We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” – Galileo Galilei

2. “Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle.”       -Galileo Galilei

3. “It reveals to me the causes of many natural phenomena that are entirely incomprehensible in the light of the generally accepted hypotheses. To refute the latter I collected many proofs, but I do not publish them ... I would dare to publish my speculations if there were people men like you.” – Galileo Galilei

4. “They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.” – Galileo Galilei

5. “The Universe is a grand book which cannot be read until one first learns to comprehend the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics.” – Galileo Galilei

6. “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

7. “It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.” – Galileo Galilei

8. “I  would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.”
   – Galileo Galilei

9. “If you could see the earth illuminated when you were in a place as dark as night, it would look to you more splendid than the moon.”
   – Galileo Galilei

10. “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

11. “I do not hope for any relief, and that is because I have committed no crime. I might hope for and obtain pardon, if I had erred, for it is to faults that the prince can bring indulgence, whereas against one wrongfully sentenced while he was innocent, it is expedient, in order to put up a show of strict lawfulness, to uphold rigor… . But my most holy intention, how clearly would it appear if some power would bring to light the slanders, frauds, and stratagems, and trickeries that were used eighteen years ago in Rome in order to deceive the authorities!” – Galileo Galilei

12. “That sculpture is more admirable than painting for the reason that it contains relief and painting does not is completely false. ... Rather, how much more admirable the painting must be considered, if having no relief at all, it appears to have as much as sculpture!” – Galileo Galilei

13. “By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.”- Galileo Galilei