The differences between the two men were pronounced. Galileo was an urbane gentleman who loved wine (which he described as "light ...held together by moisture"), women (he had three children by his mistress, Marina Gamba), and song (he was an accomplished musician). Kepler sneezed when he drank wine, had little luck with women, and heard his music in the stars. The deep organ-tones of religiosity and mysticism that resounded through Kepler's work struck Galileo as anachronistic and more than a bit embarrassing. Kepler suspected as much and pled with Galileo to please "not hold against me my rambling and my free way of speaking about nature." Galileo never answered his letter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its cove...s grape-vines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some kind of sylvan spectacle.... But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Catholic theological tradition is not a series of historically contiguous but different theologies; it is a continuous effort ...in a uniform line. A twentieth-century theologian can go back to the thirteenth or sixteenth and not be in an unknown, strange world. He is quite at home, because it is the very house he is living in today. There is central heating now and electricity, but the fireplaces have not been removed. There are elevators, but the magnificent stairs of the older time are still there. Even the moat can still be seen, though today it is used for flower beds, and the drawbridge is always down.... The Protestant theological house does not follow such a plan; it is really a rambling complex of buildings. At any moment it obeys the dictates of the tastes of the time, but one can see in the whole that there were once other structures where present ones now stand. The older parts have been torn down, though elements thereof were employed in the present erections.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dear and most respected bookcase! I welcome your existence, which has for over one hundred years been devoted to the radiant ideal...s of goodness and justice.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The good diarist writes either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely hear every secret and justly wei...gh every motive. For such an audience there is need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask, detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »