– Ever since Plato, all of them – Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Ptolemy — they have all, all, all tried to reconcile their observations with circular orbits. But what if another shape is hiding in the heavens?
– Another shape? Lady, there is no shape more pure than the circle; you taught us that.
– I know, I know, but suppose – just suppose! – the purity of the circle has blinded us from seeing anything beyond it! I must begin all over with new eyes. I must rethink everything!
It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.
The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching.
The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.