Thoughts of Galileo Galilei

Here are some interesting thoughts of the astronomer Galileo Galilei:

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

For in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.

Passion is the genesis of genius.

They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment and growth of the arts; not their dimination or destruction.

Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known?