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We do not ask what hope of gain makes a little bird warble, since we know that it takes delight in singing because it is for that very singing that the bird was made, so there is no need to ask why the human mind undertakes such toil in seeking out these secrets of the heavens. ... And just as other animals, and the human body, are sustained by food and drink, so the very spirit of Man, which is something distinct from Man, is nourished, is increased, and in a sense grows up on this diet of knowledge, and is more like the dead than the living if it is touched by no desire for these things.
Johannes Kepler -
I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.
Johannes Kepler
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If two stones were placed... near each other, and beyond the sphere of influence of a third cognate body, these stones, like two magnetic needles, would come together in the intermediate point, each approaching the other by a space proportional to the comparative mass of the other.
Johannes Kepler -
In Terra inest virtus, quae Lunam del.
Johannes Kepler -
The Earth sings Mi-Fa-Mi, so we can gather ever from this that Misery and Famine reign in our habitat.
Johannes Kepler -
Now, as God the maker play'd he taught the game to Nature whom he created in his image; taught her the selfsame game which he played to her.
Johannes Kepler -
As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking on the Moon and Jupiter. Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.
Johannes Kepler -
The squares of the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of the mean distances from the sun.
Johannes Kepler