Quotes from Isaac Newton

Absolute 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.

I do not think that this [the universe] can be explained only by natural causes, and are forced to impute to the wisdom and ingenuity of an intelligent.

The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living agent.

Godliness consists in the knowledge love & worship of God, Humanity in love, righteousness & good offices towards man.

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.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.

The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.

No old Men (excepting Dr. Wallis) love Mathematicks.

If a projectile were deprived of the force of gravity, it would not be deflected toward the earth but would go off in a straight line into the heavens and do so with uniform motion, provided that the resistance of the air were removed.

The same thing is to be understood of all bodies, revolved in any orbits. They all endeavour to recede from the centres of their orbits, and were it not for the opposition of a contrary force which restrains them to and detains them in their orbits, which I therefore call Centripetal, would fly off in right lines with a uniform motion.

An object in motion tends to remain in motion along a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.

If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.

We 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.

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.

Whence arises all that order and beauty we see in the world?

I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures I carried these calculations [of Pi], having no other business at the time

Are not rays of light very small bodies emitted from shining substances?

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

God 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.