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Isaac Newton Quotes

Physicist

Isaac Newton was an English physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, considered one of the greatest scientists in history. He made significant contributions to physics, mathematics, and astronomy, particularly with his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. Newton's work had a profound impact on the development of modern science and engineering.

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Famous Isaac Newton Quotes

“As Attraction is stronger in small Magnets than in great ones in proportion to their Bulk, and Gravity is greater in the Surfaces of small Planets than in those of great ones in proportion to their bulk, and small Bodies are agitated much more by electric attraction than great ones; so the smallness of the Rays of Light may contribute very much to the power of the Agent by which they are refracted.”

May Body Light Greater Planets Stronger Surface Attraction Agents Proportion Rays Gravity Electric Magnet Great Ones Smallness Rays Of Light

Book:Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. ...

Source: Opticks: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. ...

“A good watch may serve to keep a recconing at Sea for some days and to know the time of a Celestial Observ[at]ion: and for this end a good Jewel watch may suffice till a better sort of Watch can be found out. But when the Longitude at sea is once lost, it cannot be found again by any watch.”

Knows May Ends Found Lost Watches Sea Jewels Celestial Ions

Book:1718-1727

Source: 1718-1727

“My principal method for defeating error and heresy is by establishing the truth. One purposes to fill a bushel with tares, but if I can fill it first with wheat, I may defy his attempts.”

Ifs Firsts May I Can Purpose Method Errors Principal Heresy Wheat

Author:Isaac Newton

“That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a compentent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”

Thinking Men Believe May Matter Body Action Fall Force I Believe Philosophical Distance Faculty Absurdity Vacuums Mediation

Book:Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World

Source: Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World

“Now the smallest Particles of Matter may cohere by the strongest Attractions, and compose bigger Particles of weaker Virture.... There are therefore Agents in Nature able to make the Particles of Bodies stick together by very strong Attraction. And it is the Business of experimental Philosophy to find them out.”

May Matter Philosophy Body Able Together Strong Bigger Sticks Attraction Agents Strongest Very Strong Smallest Particles

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

Source: Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings

“A 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.”

Ifs Men May Understanding Imagination Imagine Uplifting My Imagination Apprehension

Book:Theological Manuscripts: Selected and Edited with an Introd. by H. McLachlan

Source: Theological Manuscripts: Selected and Edited with an Introd. by H. McLachlan

“I 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.”

“A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road he is at a stand. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub. (from a letter dated 25 May, 1694)”

Ifs Knows May Has Beens Reason Done Able Force Practice Figures Taught Letters Errors Get Over Vulgar

Book:Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes: Including Letters of Other Eminent Men Now First Published from the Originals in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge; Together with an Appendix, Containing Other Unpublished Letters and Papers by Newton; with Notes, Synoptical View of the Philosopher's Life, and a Variety of Details Illustrative of His History

Source: Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor Cotes: Including Letters of Other Eminent Men Now First Published from the Originals in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge; Together with an Appendix, Containing Other Unpublished Letters and Papers by Newton; with Notes, Synoptical View of the Philosopher's Life, and a Variety of Details Illustrative of His History

“God who gave Animals self motion beyond our understanding is without doubt able to implant other principles of motion in bodies [which] we may understand as little. Some would readily grant this may be a Spiritual one; yet a mechanical one might be showne, did not I think it better to pass it by.”

Thinking May Littles Self Body Might Able Spiritual Understanding Animal Principles Doubt Grants Implants

Author:Isaac Newton

“Do not great Bodies conserve their heat the longest, their parts heating one another, and may not great dense and fix'd Bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit Light so copiously, as by the Emission and Re-action of its Light, and the Reflexions and Refractions of its Rays within its Pores to grow still hotter, till it comes to a certain period of heat, such as is that of the Sun?”