Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

Every light has its shadow, and every shadow hath a succeeding morning.

Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.

Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

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.

Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.

Mathematics is written for mathematicians.