Galileo Galilei Quotes

Oh, my dear Kepler, how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, [telescope] which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? what shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! and to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa laboring before the grand duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky.

Liberalism has become a special kind of stupid, and it's on full display now, which I think ultimately has the potential to be a good thing.

I don't think that it would make the slightest difference to life and to the aspects of life that interest me if we could go to the moon tomorrow, because I think what really makes life interesting is the big question "Why?"

Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Even today many educated people think that the victory of Christianity over Greek philosophy is a proof of the superior truth of the former - although in this case it was only the coarser and more violent that conquered the more spiritual and delicate. So far as superior truth is concerned, it is enough to observe that the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by point with the philosophy of Epicurus, but point by point rejected Christianity.

I think it's time we recognized the Dark Ages are over. Galileo and Copernicus have been proven right. The world is in fact round; the Earth does revolve around the sun. I believe God gave us intellect to differentiate between imprisoning dogma and sound ethical science, which is what we must do here today.

We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge.

When you talk and think of the Absolute, you have to do it in the relative; so all these logical arguments apply.

I used to think that I was stupid, and then I met philosophers.

There are three kinds of people I've found: those who think the universe is good, those who believe it's corrupt, and those who don't want to think about it any more than they can help. I prefer the first two.

If you jump out of a plane without a parachute, does that make you brave? No, I think that makes you stupid. I will never play without the mask again.

I can't think of a comparable level of cultural excitement about something since Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in the 1960s.

It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought. I is someone else.

It's not my concern. It's your concern. I just keep working. I keep posing certain questions and I think there are times when people think "What happened to the Judith Butler I used to know?" or "She's not doing gender trouble. Does that mean she refuses it or she's disavowed it?" And I would say no. I have not refused or disavowed anything.

The unprecedented success of Keynesianism is due to the fact that it provides an apparent justification for the 'deficit spending' policies of contemporary governments. It is the pseudo-philosophy of those who can think of nothing else than to dissipate the capital accumulated by previous generations.

We are under the stifling regulation and taxes of a predominantly left-wing type of thinking and philosophy. The eight years of Barack Obama have shrouded this country in punitive regulations. We haven't had economic growth higher than one and a half percent for the last eight or nine years, and that was done on purpose. There have been robust times in the past, and there are a lot of people right now that are doing well and are growing. But generally it ought to be much better in the past. There needs to be an economic revival.

I think, therefore I am confused.

What verse is for the poet, dialectical thinking is for the philosopher. He grasps for it in order to get hold of his own enchantment, in order to perpetuate it.

…but all day long I would be training myself to think, to understand, to criticize, to know myself; I was seeking for the absolute truth: this preoccupation did not exactly encourage polite conversation.

And he wrote, "When the moon rises tonight think of me and I'll think of you.

If I could only fly, you see, a lot of my problems would be gone. When you think of just how much I'd save on shoes alone.

I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon: that and time ought to have been there.

Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.

It is of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.

Stupid. Stupid. Foaly, we are both imbeciles. I don't expect lateral thinking from the LEP, but from you..." ... "What is it?" [Holly] asked, afraid of the answer, which must surely be terrible. "Yeah," agreed Foaly, who always had time to feel insulted. "Why am I an imbecile?