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For what could be more beautiful than the heavens which contain all beautiful things.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.
Nicolaus Copernicus
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More stars in the north are seen not to set, while in the south certain stars are no longer seen to rise.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
I therefore took this opportunity and also began to consider the possibility that the Earth moved. Although it seemed an absurd opinion, nevertheless, because I knew that others before me had been granted the liberty of imagining whatever circles they wished to represent the phenomena of the stars, I thought that I likewise would readily be allowed to test whether, by assuming some motion of the Earth's, more dependable representations than theirs could be found for the revolutions of the heavenly spheres.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
When, therefore, I had long considered this uncertainty of traditional mathematics, it began to weary me that no more definite explanation of the movement of the world-machine established in our behalf by the best and most systematic builder of all, existed among the philosophers who had studied so exactly in other respects the minutest details in regard to the sphere.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
Astronomy is written for astronomers.
Nicolaus Copernicus
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So if the worth of the arts were measured by the matter with which they deal, this art-which some call astronomy, others astrology, and many of the ancients the consummation of mathematics-would be by far the most outstanding. This art which is as it were the head of all the liberal arts and the one most worthy of a free man leans upon nearly all the other branches of mathe matics. Arithmetic, geometry, optics, geodesy, mechanics, and whatever others, all offer themselves in its service.
Nicolaus Copernicus -
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
Nicolaus Copernicus