For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study. – Nicolaus Copernicus
Although all the good arts serve to draw mans mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure. – Nicolaus Copernicus
So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it. – Nicolaus Copernicus
So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do. – Nicolaus Copernicus
A mere compilation of facts presents only the skeleton of History; we do but little for her if we cannot invest her with life, clothe her in the habiliments of her day, and enable her to call forth the sympathies of succeeding generations. – Hannah Farnham Lee, The Huguenots in France and America