“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
―
―
“From all this we concluded that the first two divisions of theoretical philosophy should
rather be called guesswork than knowledge, theology because of its completely invisible
and ungraspable nature, physics because of the unstable and unclear nature of the matter;
hence there is no hope that philosophers will ever be agreed about them; and that only
mathematics can provide sure and unshakable knowledge to its devotees, provided one
approaches it rigorously. For its kind of proof proceeds by indisputable methods, namely
arithmetic and geometry (tr. Toomer, p. 6).”
― The Almagest: Introduction to the Mathematics of the Heavens
rather be called guesswork than knowledge, theology because of its completely invisible
and ungraspable nature, physics because of the unstable and unclear nature of the matter;
hence there is no hope that philosophers will ever be agreed about them; and that only
mathematics can provide sure and unshakable knowledge to its devotees, provided one
approaches it rigorously. For its kind of proof proceeds by indisputable methods, namely
arithmetic and geometry (tr. Toomer, p. 6).”
― The Almagest: Introduction to the Mathematics of the Heavens
“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being...
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”
― The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”
― The Principia : Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
“I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia”
― Ptolemy's Almagest
― Ptolemy's Almagest
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