|
"And yet it moves."
At his trial by the Inquisition in 1633, Galileo Galilei renounced his published theory that the Earth moves around the Sun -- and then, the story has it, he added under his breath "E pur (or Eppur) si muove," usually translated as "And yet it moves."
The phrase has survived almost 400 years as a way to say "you can force me to recant, but you can not change reality."
The odds are in fact that Galileo did not say this, at least not at his trial. Among other problems -- if he had said it, and anybody had overheard it, the Catholic Church would have killed him. However, he might have said it later to friends. The famous line was long thought to have been an 18th century invention, but then it was found on a Spanish painting of Galileo that dates to around 1640. This means that the line was being attributed to Galileo while he was still alive, or just after his death in 1642.
For what it is worth, he got away with house arrest until he died, nine years after the trial.
| 
