Quotessence
Home / Authors / Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton Quotes

Physicist

Filter quotes by topic

AllScienceBodyIfsForceLightPhilosophyMenCausesMayWorldFirstsMatterMadeMathematicalAtheismKnowsNaturalRaysGravityHas Beens

Famous Isaac Newton Quotes

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being... This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.”

GodScienceReligionScience And ReligionTheismIntelligent DesignIdReligion And Science
Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Create image

“Kepler's laws, although not rigidly true, are sufficiently near to the truth to have led to the discovery of the law of attraction of the bodies of the solar system. The deviation from complete accuracy is due to the facts, that the planets are not of inappreciable mass, that, in consequence, they disturb each other's orbits about the Sun, and, by their action on the Sun itself, cause the periodic time of each to be shorter than if the Sun were a fixed body, in the subduplicate ratio of the mass of the Sun to the sum of the masses of the Sun and Planet; these errors are appreciable although very small, since the mass of the largest of the planets, Jupiter, is less than 1/1000th of the Sun's mass.”

ScienceSunMassAstronomyLaw Of AttractionGravityAccuracyOrbitJupiterKeplerTheory Of GravityJohannes KeplerKepler S Laws
Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Create image

“God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.”

ScienceEvolutionScience And ReligionNaturalismDarwinismIntelligent DesignIdMacroevolutionReligion And Science
Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Create image

“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.”

WorldFirstsPhilosophyScienceCausesNaturalEffectsArguingResolveMechanismHypothesisNatural PhilosophyFeigning
Book:Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae exstant omnia
Create image

“Qu. 31. Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting and reflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the Phænomena of Nature?”

BodyLightScienceCertainForceNatureNaturalVirtueDistanceRaysParticlesReflectingRays Of Light
Book:MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OPTICS
Create image

“All material Things seem to have been composed of the hard and solid Particles ... variously associated with the first Creation by the Counsel of an intelligent Agent. For it became him who created them to set them in order: and if he did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World, or to pretend that it might arise out of a Chaos by the mere Laws of Nature.”

IfsWorldFirstsHas BeensHardSeemsMightLawScienceOrderNatureNaturalCreationMaterialsIntelligentMereChaosAriseAgentsLaws Of NatureParticlesMaterial Things
Book:Isaac Newton: Philosophical Writings
Create image

“The Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discovered and established as Principles, and by them explaining the Phænomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.”

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

“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.”

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

“The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

TruthScienceSeaTrustOceanScientistLaysPhysicsNow And ThenShellsMathematicianMiscellaneousQuantum MechanicsTelescopesPebblesTruth And LiesMath And ScienceQuantum TheoryMathematics And ScienceChildren PlayingFamous Last WordsGreat ScienceGreat ScientistScience PhysicsOcean SeaOceans And SeasSeashoreBeach And OceanHeavenly BodiesBeach OceanSea And BeachCool BeachDiscovery And InventionDiscovering The TruthEarth ScienceBodies In MotionPebble BeachSea ShellBefore And Now
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

IfsInspirationalScienceVisionSeeingTeamHumilityStandingPersonal GrowthShouldersGiantsTeamworkCollaborationTeam BuildingTeam WorkTeamwTeam WorkingBuilding A TeamGreat ScienceCooperation And TeamworkMotivational TeamworkHeavenly BodiesImportance Of TeamworkScience EducationScience ResearchUnity And TeamworkTeam Work MotivationalInspiring Team BuildingTeam SuccessTeamwork SuccessBodies In Motion
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“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.”

KnowsWorldInspirationalMayHas BeensSeemsTruthSuccessScienceFunNatureBoysKnowledgeSeaTrustTruth IsOceanFindingsOrdinaryScientistLaysPhysicsUpliftingNow And ThenShellsMiscellaneousPebblesTruth And LiesMath And ScienceMathematics And ScienceChildren PlayingGreat ScienceGreat ScientistScience PhysicsOcean SeaLike A BoyOceans And SeasSeashoreBeach And OceanBeach OceanBest ScienceKnowing The TruthSea And BeachCool BeachDiscovery And InventionDiscovering The TruthI Know The TruthPebble BeachSea ShellBefore And Now
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“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.”

PhilosophyTruthScienceCertainDifficultNaturalTakenOughtMathematicsMethodDrawingExperimentsConclusionObservationAnalysisInvestigationCompositionHypothesisDifficult ThingsObjectionsAdmittingNatural Philosophy
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“Absolute, true, and mathematical time, in and of itself and of its own nature, without reference to anything external, flows uniformly and by another name is called duration. Relative, apparent, and common time is any sensible and external measure (precise or imprecise) of duration by means of motion; such as a measure-for example, an hour, a day, a month, a year-is commonly used instead of true time.”

YearsMeanScienceUsedTimeNamesHoursCommonExampleMonthsFlowAbsolutesMathematicalRelativeSensiblePreciseMeasurementDuration
Book:Newton: Philosophical Writings
Create image

“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?”

MayStillsBodyLightActionScienceCertainGrowsSunPeriodsDegreesHeatRaysDinosaursEmissionsDenseHotterHeating
Book:Delphi Collected Works of Sir Isaac Newton (Illustrated)
Create image

“It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the end for which He formed them; and that these primitive particles, being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even so very hard as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God had made one in the first creation.”

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

“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.”

ShouldPhilosophyScienceContraryExperimentsExceptionPropositionsHypothesisLiable
Book:The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Create image

“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.”

WayShouldFirstsMayPhilosophySeemsScienceExperiencePropertyExperimentsExplanationEmployedHypothesisExplaining
Author:Isaac Newton
Create image

“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

“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