Quotes from Isaac Newton

For I see not what there is desirable in publick esteeme, were I able to acquire & maintaine it. It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline.

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

What we know is a drop. What we don't know is an ocean.

Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas.

Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion; but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.

That one body should act upon another through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else is so great an absurdity that no man suited to do science...can ever fall into it,.....Gravity must be caused by an agent...but whether that agent be material or immaterial I leave to my readers.

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever.

This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.

eorum omnium actiones in se invicem

For it became him [God] who created them [the atoms] to set them in order. And if he did so, it's 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.

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One.

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

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

Deus é capaz de criar partículas de matéria de diversos tamanhos e formas...e talvez de diferentes densidades e forças e, portanto, de variar as leis da natureza e fazer mundos de diversos tipos em várias partes do universo. Pelo menos não vejo contradição alguma em tudo isso.

Hypotheses non fingo (Latin for "I feign no hypotheses", "I frame no hypotheses", or "I contrive no hypotheses")

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, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.

God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men's curiosity by enabling them to fore know things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and His own providence, not the interpreters, be thereby manifested to the world.

the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the contrary part.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age it is much better to do a little with certainty and leave the rest for others who come after you

If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. - From a letter to Robert Hooke dated February 5th, 1676. The metaphor was first recorded in 1159 by John of Salisbury and attributed to Bernard of Chartres: Dicebat Bernardus Carnotensis nos esse quasi nanos, gigantium humeris insidentes, ut possimus plura eis et remotiora videre, non utique proprii visus acumine, aut eminentia corporis, sed quia in altum subvenimur et extollimur magnitudine gigantea.

Gravity must be caused by an Agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this Agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the Consideration of my readers.

If I had seen further than others, it's because I stood upon the shoulders of giants.

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

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.