Galileo Galilei Quotes on Authority
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After the publication of my dialogues, I was summoned to Rome by the Congregation of the holy Office, where, being arrived on the 10th of February 1633, I was subjected to the infinite clemency of that tribunal, and of the Sovereign Pontiff, Urban the Eighth; who, notwithstanding, thought me deserving of his esteem. (A Selection from Italian Prose Writers, pp. 145-146)
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I am certainly interested in a tribunal in which, for having used my reason, I was deemed little less than a heretic. Who knows but men will reduce me from the profession of a philosopher to that of historian of the Inquisition! But they behave to me in order that I may become the ignoramous and the fool of Italy... ( Selection, p.244)
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In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.