Isaac Newton's Quotes
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
Isaac NewtonIf I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Isaac NewtonI do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king's business.
Isaac NewtonTact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
Isaac NewtonErrors are not in the art but in the artificers.
Isaac NewtonTo every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
Isaac NewtonThe smaller the planets are, they are, other things being equal, of so much the greater density; for so the powers of gravity on their several surfaces come nearer to equality. They are likewise, other things being equal, of the greater density, as they are nearer to the sun.
Isaac NewtonReligion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.
Isaac NewtonThe ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect: as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name.
Isaac Newton'God' is a relative word and has a respect to servants, and 'Deity' is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants.
Isaac NewtonTo me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.
Isaac NewtonIf anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.
Isaac NewtonWe are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple and always consonant to itself.
Isaac NewtonIn the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.
Isaac NewtonGod made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.
Isaac NewtonAs a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.
Isaac NewtonI have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
Isaac NewtonI do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Isaac NewtonThere are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible that in any profane history.
Isaac NewtonI do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Isaac NewtonGravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent.
Isaac NewtonFidelity and allegiance sworn to the King is only such a fidelity and obedience as is due to him by the law of the land; for were that faith and allegiance more than what the law requires, we would swear ourselves slaves and the King absolute; whereas, by the law, we are free men, notwithstanding those oaths.
Isaac NewtonTruth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Isaac NewtonPlato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
Isaac NewtonThe motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.
Isaac NewtonAtheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.
Isaac NewtonIt is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses.
Isaac NewtonThe motions of the comets are exceedingly regular, and they observe the same laws as the motions of the planets, but they differ from the motions of vortices in every particular and are often contrary to them.
Isaac NewtonAbsolute space, in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure of the absolute spaces, which our senses determine by its position to bodies, and which is vulgarly taken for immovable space.
Isaac NewtonGod in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them.
Isaac NewtonA man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
Isaac Newton