Tao Te Ching
Copernicus, Nicolaus
1473 – 1543 CE
Creator of one of history's greatest revolutions
From our point of view, such a simple and obvious proposition—that the Earth rotates around the Sun. At his time and place in history, however, Copernicus created one of the most far-reaching revolutions of understanding in the history of the world. Mathematician, astronomer, physician, translator, diplomat, economist, polyglot and polymath; his celestial theory threatened the powerful Catholic Church so much it was considered an atheistic blasphemy and because Galileo agreed with it, he was incarcerated for the last nine years of his life. An early humanist, he also developed an important economic concept and theory of money, translated poems from Greek to Latin, and even became an effective and influential government official.
Lineages
Central European Humanism Scientists
Eras
Western
Renaissance (1304 – 1576 CE)Chinese
Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644 CE)Unlisted Sources
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1542
Quotes by Copernicus, Nicolaus (3 quotes)
“At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun.”
from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
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“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.”
from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, 1542
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“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.”
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Quotes about Copernicus, Nicolaus (2 quotes)
“Sure that all truth must be good and beautiful and would make men free, Copernicus—with the magic of his mathematics—transformed a geocentric and anthropocentric universe into a kaleidoscope of planets and stars... No book in history created a greater revolution... With him modernity begins, With him secularism begins. With him reason makes its French Revolution against an immemorially enthroned faith, a revolution that compelled man to become of age.”
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“Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today—you shall be sure to be misunderstood but is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
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