Galileo's Daughter Quotes

“with its graceful language and poetic conceit, and even more because it expressed his own philosophy of science. To wit: As earnestly as men may seek to understand the workings of the universe, they must remember that God is not hampered by their limited logic—that all observed effects may have been wrought by Him in any one of an infinite number of omnipotent ways, and these must ever evade mortal comprehension.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“But I do not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech, our intellect, would have put aside the use of these, to teach us instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly in the case of these sciences of which there is not the smallest mention in the Scriptures; and, above all, in astronomy, of which so little notice is taken that the names of none of the planets are mentioned. Surely if the intention of the sacred scribes had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have passed over the subject so completely.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“And by this experience his knowledge was reduced to diffidence, so that when asked how sounds were created he used to answer tolerantly that although he knew a few ways, he was sure that many more existed which were not only unknown but unimaginable.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“As earnestly as men may seek to understand the workings of the universe, they must remember that God is not hampered by their limited logic that all observed effects may have been wrought by Him in any one of an infinite number of omnipotent ways, and these ways, and these must ever evade mortal comprehension.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“There was only one trial of Galileo, and yet it seems there were a thousand—the suppression of science by religion, the defense of individualism against authority, the clash between revolutionary and establishment, the challenge of radical new discoveries to ancient beliefs, the struggle against intolerance for freedom of thought and freedom of speech.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“In 1616, a pope and a cardinal inquisitor reprimanded Galileo, warning him to curtail his forays into the supernal realms. The motions of the heavenly bodies, they said, having been touched upon in the Psalms, the Book of Joshua, and elsewhere in the Bible, were matters best left to the Holy Fathers of the Church.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

“Even more than he regretted her opposition, he dreaded the drawing of battle lines between science and Scripture. Personally, he saw no conflict between the two.”
― Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love