"For many parts of Nature can neither be invented with sufficient subtlety, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated to use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervention of Mathematic: of which sort are Perspective, Music, Astronomy, cosmography, Architecture, Machinery, and some others." (Sir Francis Bacon, "De Augmentis", Bk. 3 [The Advancement of Learning], 1605)
"As in every discipline, so in astronomy, too, the conclusions that we teach the reader are seriously intended, and our discussion is no mere game." (Johannes Kepler, "Astronomia Nova" ["New Astronomy"],1609)
"Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void. [...] So, for those who will come shortly to attempt this journey, let us establish the astronomy: Galileo, you of Jupiter, I of the moon." (Johannes Kepler
[open letter to Galileo Galilei] 1610)
"To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them not to see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover." (Galileo Galilei, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina", 1615)
"Astronomy has two ends, to save the appearances and to contemplate the true form of the edifice of the world." (Johannes Kepler, "Epitome of Copernican Astronomy" ["Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae"], 1617)
"It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved. The prohibition of astronomy would be an open contempt of a hundred texts of the Holy Scriptures, which teach us that the glory and the greatness of Almighty God are admirably discerned in all His works, and divinely read in the open book of the heavens." (Galileo Galilei, "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", 1632)
"This [experimentation] is the custom - and properly so - in those sciences where mathematical demonstrations are applied to natural phenomena, as is seen in the case of perspective, astronomy, mechanics, music, and others where the principles, once established by well-chosen experiments, become the foundations of the entire superstructure." (Galileo Galilei, "Dialogues and Mathematical Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences", 1638)
"As astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of property." (Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds", 1686)
"My soul is not mercenary enough for geometry, nor is it tender enough for poetry; but I have as much time to spare as astronomy requires." (Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds", 1686)
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