After the birth of printing books became widespread. Hence everyone throughout Europe devoted himself to the study of literature... Every year, especially since 1563, the number of writings published in every field is greater than all those produced in the past thousand years. Through them there has today been created a new theology and a new jurisprudence; the Paracelsians have created medicine anew and the Copernicans have created astronomy anew. I really believe that at last the world is alive, indeed seething, and that the stimuli of these remarkable conjunctions did not act in vain.

I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]

The radius vector describes equal areas in equal times.

Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.

Nature loves simplicity and unity.

It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.

Once miracles are admitted, every scientific explanation is out of the question.