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Words worth keeping

Quotes collected along the way.

Memorable words, family sayings, observations, and lessons preserved with their meaning and source.

Cosmology

“There is in the universe neither center nor circumference.
In space there are countless constella-tions, suns and planets; we see only the suns because they give light; the planets remain invisible, for they are small and dark. There are also numberless earths circling around their suns, no worse and no less than this globe of ours. For no reasonable mind can assume that heav-enly bodies that may be far more magnif-icent than ours would not bear upon them creatures similar or even superior to those upon our human earth.”

— Giordano Bruno

De l'infinito, universo e mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds) · 1584

Probable attribution
The passage expresses Bruno's rejection of a finite, Earth-centered cosmos. In his dialogue on the infinite universe, he argued that the universe contains innumerable worlds and that other planets may be inhabited. The supplied English wording appears to be a translation or anthology-style rendering rather than a securely identified original English text.
About this quote

About the author

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was an Italian philosopher, former Dominican friar, and writer on cosmology, religion, and metaphysics. He defended an infinite universe containing innumerable worlds, extending beyond the Copernican claim that Earth moves around the Sun. He was tried by the Roman Inquisition and executed in Rome in 1600.

Why it matters

The words are remembered as an early, influential statement of a pluralistic universe: one without a privileged center and potentially containing many inhabited worlds.