<= Previous | February Issues Index | Next =>
Quotes of the Day for 19 February 2004 - Center

Niclaus Koppernigk was born at Torun, Poland on this day in 1473. His father died ten years later, and he was taken in by his uncle, a bishop. He was educated first at the University of Krakow, studying the classics, math, and art in preparation for life in the ministry. He continued his studies at the University of Bologna in Italy, studying canon law. He then returned to the north of Europe and practiced medicine for six years before accepting the first of several administrative positions for the church. Each of these positions gave him rooms in a castle, with access to the towers, from which he observed the motion of the stars and planets in the night sky with his naked eyes. Over a period of years he was able to demonstrate that the earth rotated each day, and orbited the sun each year, overturning the established Ptolemaic theory of cosmology. It didn't upset the church, because he didn't bother to publish any of it for many years - apparently not out of fear but because he simply never stopped double-checking the work. His major work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium was published under his Latinized name: Nicolaus Copernicus. The idea that the earth was not the center of the universe was, somehow, upsetting to many. Copernicus was also wrong, he thought the sun was the center of the universe. What's the center of your universe?

One must pass through the circumference of time before arriving at the center of opportunity.
     - Baltasar Gracian, 1601 - 1656

Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
     - Blaise Pascal, 1623 - 1662

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
     - Chuang Tzu, 369 - 286 BC

You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go.... Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
     - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
     - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

The task of science is to stake out the limits of the knowable, and to center consciousness within them.
     - Rudolf Virchow, 1821 - 1902

Would you like to see quotes like these in your mail tomorrow morning? Our 10,000 loyal subscribers hate to miss a day, perhaps you should sign up now! No cost or obligation, just be open to the enlightenment waiting for you among our 22,500+ quotes.