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Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton Quotes

Physicist

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Famous Isaac Newton Quotes

“The main Business of Natural Philosophy is to argue from Phænomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these, and to such like Questions.”

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Book:Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae exstant omnia
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“To derive two or three general Principles of Motion from Phænomena, and afterwards to tell us how the Properties and Actions of all corporeal Things follow from those manifest Principles, would be a very great step in Philosophy.”

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Book:Opticks: A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections, and Colours of Light
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“Our design, not respecting arts, but philosophy, and our subject, not manual, but natural powers, we consider chiefly those things which relate to gravity, levity, elastic force, the resistance of fluids, and the like forces, whether attractive or impulsive; and therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy; for all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena.”

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Book:Newton's Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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“I have presented principles of philosophy that are not, however, philosophical but strictly mathematical-that is, those on which the study of philosophy can be based. These principles are the laws and conditions of motions and of forces, which especially relate to philosophy.”

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Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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“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.”

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Book:Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings
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“As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.”

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Author:Isaac Newton
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“In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.”

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Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
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“The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.”

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Author:Isaac Newton
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“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.”

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Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings
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“I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.”

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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)
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“. . . 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.”

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Author:Isaac Newton
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