SOURCE: Foreword to Galileo Galilei: "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems—Ptolemaic & Copernican," by Galileo Galilei, translated by Stillman Drake, with the foreward translated by Sonja Bargmann, University of California Press, 2nd ed., 1967, pp. vii-xix.

In the following essay, originally published in 1953 and reprinted in 1967, Einstein expresses his admiration for Galileo's creativity and remarks that the theme of "Galileo's work is the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority."

Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is a mine of information for anyone interested in the cultural history of the Western world and its influence upon economic and political development.

A man is here revealed who possesses the passionate will, the intelligence, and the courage to stand up as the representative of rational thinking against the host of those who, relying on the ignorance of the people and the indolence of teachers in...