Quotessence
Home / Authors / Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton Quotes

Physicist

Filter quotes by topic

AllScienceBodyIfsForceLightPhilosophyMenCausesMayWorld

Famous Isaac Newton Quotes

“Our present work sets forth mathematical principles of philosophy. For the basic problem of philosophy seems to be to discover the forces of nature from the phenomena of motions and then to demonstrate the other phenomena from these forces. It is to these ends that the general propositions in books 1 and 2 are directed, while in book 3 our explanation of the system of the world illustrates these propositions.”

WorldBookEndsPhilosophyProblemSeemsScienceForceNaturePrinciplesDiscoveryMathematicsMathematicalExplanationPropositionsForces Of Nature
Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings
Create image

“I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.”

MadeSelfPhilosophySciencePhilosophicalSlave
Book:Correspondence of Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century, Including Letters of Barrow, Flamsteed, Wallis, and Newton, Printed from the Originals in the Collection of the Earl of Macclesfield (published by Stephen Jordan Rigaud)
Create image

“No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.”

WayMindFirstsDoeBodySpaceExistenceEffectsRelated
Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings
Create image

“This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer or maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?”

KnowsBelieveAbleLawTakenDesignOriginalsMereConclusionDesignerReasoningConvinceMakersToysImitation
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“. . . Newton was an unquestioning believer in an all-wise creator of the universe, and in his own inability - like the boy on the seashore - to fathom the entire ocean in all its depths. He therefore believed that there were not only many things in heaven beyond his philosophy, but plenty on earth as well, and he made it his business to understand for himself what the majority of intelligent men of his time accepted without dispute (to them it was as natural as common sense) - the traditional account of the creation.”

MenWellsMadePhilosophyEarthUniverseBeliefHeavenNaturalCommonBusinessBoysWiseCreationOceanAccountsIntelligentMajorityDepthCreatorBelieverAcceptedCommon SenseTraditionalMade ItPlentyInabilityDisputesNewtonFathomIntelligent ManSeashore
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“From what has been said it is also evident, that the Whiteness of the Sun's Light is compounded all the Colours wherewith the several sorts of Rays whereof that Light consists, when by their several Refrangibilities they are separated from one another, do tinge Paper or any other white Body whereon they fall. For those Colours ... are unchangeable, and whenever all those Rays with those their Colours are mix'd again, they reproduce the same white Light as before.”

Has BeensSaidBodyLightFallWhiteSunPaperColourRaysEvidentWhitenessUnchangeableWhite Light
Book:Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light
Create image

“Thus far I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity. Indeed, this force arises from some cause that penetrates as far as the centers of the sun and planets without any diminution of its power to act, and that acts not in proportion to the quantity of the surfaces of the particles on which it acts (as mechanical causes are wont to do) but in proportion to the quantity of solid matter, and whose action is extended everywhere to immense distances, always decreasing as the squares of the distances.”

MatterActionScienceForceHeavenCausesSunSeaPlanetsDistanceSurfaceAriseProportionSquaresGravityQuantityImmenseParticlesPenetrate
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“This Excellent Mathematician having given us, in the Transactions of February last, an account of the cause, which induced him to think upon Reflecting Telescopes, instead of Refracting ones, hath thereupon presented the curious world with an Essay of what may be performed by such Telescopes; by which it is found, that Telescopical Tubes may be considerably shortened without prejudice to their magnifiying effect. On his invention of the catadioptrical telescope, as he communicated to the Royal Society.”

ThinkingWorldMayLastsScienceFoundGivenCausesEffectsAccountsPrejudiceInventionCuriousExcellentMathematicianRoyalEssaysReflectingTubesTransactionsTelescopesFebruary
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“Do not the Rays which differ in Refrangibility differ also in Flexibity; and are they not by their different Inflexions separated from one another, so as after separation to make the Colours in the three Fringes above described? And after what manner are they inflected to make those Fringes?”

DifferentScienceThreeSeparationColourDescriptionRaysFringe
Book:Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings
Create image

“The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn.”

DoeLinesTeachDrawsMathematicsMathCirclesMathematicalDescriptionMechanicGeometry
Book:Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The motion of bodies
Create image

“Are not all Hypotheses erroneous, in which Light is supposed to consist in Pression or Motion, propagated through a fluid Medium? For in all these Hypotheses the Phaenomena of Light have been hitherto explain'd by supposing that they arise from new Modifications of the Rays; which is an erroneous Supposition.”

Has BeensLightScienceAriseMediumsRaysHypothesisFluidModificationSupposingSuppositionSupposing That
Book:Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light
Create image

“Do not Bodies and Light act mutually upon one another; that is to say, Bodies upon Light in emitting, reflecting, refracting and inflecting it, and Light upon Bodies for heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion wherein heat consists?”

BodyLightScienceHeatReflectingHeating
Book:Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light
Create image