Quotes About Isaac Newton

#1. God is able to create particles of matter of several sizes and figures and perhaps of different densities and forces, and thereby to vary the laws of nature, and make worlds of several sorts in several parts of the Universe.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#3. The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.

Isaac Newton

#4. You sometimes speak of gravity as essential and inherent to matter. Pray do not ascribe that notion to me, for the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know, and therefore would take more time to consider of it.

Isaac Newton

#5. Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.

Isaac Newton

#6. Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external.

Isaac Newton

#7. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

Isaac Newton

#8. The seed of a tree has the nature of a branch or twig or bud. It is a part of the tree, but if separated and set in the earth to be better nourished, the embryo or young tree contained in it takes root and grows into a new tree.

Isaac Newton

#9. All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer.

Isaac Newton

#10. To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#12. Bullialdus wrote that all force respecting ye Sun as its center & depending on matter must be reciprocally in a duplicate ratio of ye distance from ye center.

Isaac Newton

#13. No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.

Isaac Newton

#14. Let me think ... I wonder if an anvil will drop like an apple?

Isaac Newton

#15. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

Isaac Newton

#16. We all know we fall. Newton's discovery was that the moon falls, too-and by the same rule that we do.

Isaac Asimov

#17. A cylinder of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere is of equal weight with a cylinder of water about 33 feet high.

Isaac Newton

#18. I understood. I have understood. I do understand.

Isaac Newton

#19. That the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another is a matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated.

Isaac Newton

#20. Do not Bodies and Light act mutually upon one another; that is to say, Bodies upon Light in emitting, reflecting, refracting and inflecting it, and Light upon Bodies for heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion wherein heat consists?

Isaac Newton

#21. The moon gravitates towards the earth and by the force of gravity is continually drawn off from a rectilinear motion and retained in its orbit.

Isaac Newton

#22. 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.

Isaac Newton

#23. I can measure the motions of bodies," Sir Isaac Newton once observed, "but I cannot measure human folly." Nor could he do so as regards his own. He was to lose

John Kenneth Galbraith

#24. 'God' is a relative word and has a respect to servants, and 'Deity' is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants.

Isaac Newton

#25. 'Tis the temper of the hot and superstitious part of mankind in matters of religion ever to be fond of mysteries, and for that reason to like best what they understand least.

Isaac Newton

#26. Why there is one body in our System qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason but because the Author of the System thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.

Isaac Newton

#27. Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads.

Isaac Newton

#28. Every body persists in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces having impact upon it.

Isaac Newton

#29. Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Isaac Newton

#30. Newton said, 'If I have seen further than others, it is because I've stood on the shoulders of giants.' These days we stand on each other's feet!

Richard Hamming

#31. Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall on the hundred and first.

Derek Landy

#32. The best way to understanding is a few good examples.

Isaac Newton

#33. It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.

Isaac Newton

#34. 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.

Isaac Newton

#35. Perhaps the most important contribution to science that the Royal Society has made in its three centuries of existence is its early role in publishing Newton's masterful account of his discoveries.

Julian Schwinger

#36. The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#38. It may be that there is no such thing as an equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may be accelerated or retarded, but the true, or equable, progress of absolute time is liable to no change.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#40. Descartes gave sight to the blind. These saw the errors of antiquity and of the sciences. The path he struck out is since become boundless [ ... ] In fathoming this abyss no bottom has been found. We are now to examine what discoveries Sir Isaac Newton has made in it.

Voltaire

#41. This principle of nature being very remote from the conceptions of Philosophers, I forbore to describe it in that book, least I should be accounted an extravagant freak and so prejudice my Readers against all those things which were the main designe of the book.

Isaac Newton

#42. Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, By thinking about it all the time.

Isaac Newton

#43. 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.

Isaac Newton

#44. Impressed force is the action exerted on a body to change its state either of resting or of moving uniformly straight forward.

Isaac Newton

#45. To any action there is always an opposite and equal reaction; in other words, the actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and always opposite in direction.

Isaac Newton

#46. No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

Isaac Newton

#47. Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind, that it never had many professors.

Isaac Newton

#48. Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

Isaac Newton

#49. The "gravity train" was devised in the seventeenth century by British scientist Robert Hooke, who presented the idea in a letter to Isaac Newton. The idea has been seriously presented a few times, such as to the Paris Academy of Sciences in the nineteenth century.

Stephen Baxter

#50. Against filling the Heavens with fluid Mediums, unless they be exceeding rare, a great Objection arises from the regular and very lasting Motions of the Planets and Comets in all manner of Courses through the Heavens.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#52. Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

Isaac Newton

#53. Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Isaac Newton

#54. Centripetal force is the force by which bodies are drawn from all sides, are impelled, or in any way tend, toward some point as to a center.

Isaac Newton

#55. F I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

Isaac Newton

#56. Nature is very consonant and conformable with herself.

Isaac Newton

#57. The more time and devotion one spends in the worship of false gods, the less he is able to spend in that of the True One.

Isaac Newton

#58. His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#60. Because of Diamond, I have had to begin much of the work afresh. I will not, however, rid myself of her, nor even punish her. She knew not what she was doing, and that which she did was for my protection and for love of my person. Her place remains at my side or against my feet when I lie abed.

Isaac Newton

#61. When two forces unite, their efficiency double.

Isaac Newton

#62. To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.

Isaac Newton

#63. 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.

Isaac Newton

#64. Every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances.

Isaac Newton

#65. On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#66. 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.

Isaac Newton

#67. Is not Fire a Body heated so hot as to emit Light copiously? For what else is a red hot Iron than Fire? And what else is a burning Coal than red hot Wood?

Isaac Newton

#68. As Einstein once wrote (more ringingly in German than in this English translation by one of us [DG]) to honor Isaac Newton: Look unto the stars to teach us How the master's thoughts can reach us Each one follows Newton's math Silently along its path.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#69. They who search after the Philosopher's Stone [are] by their own rules obliged to a strict and religious life.

Isaac Newton

#70. I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.

Isaac Newton

#71. Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.

Isaac Newton

#72. Pictures, propagated by motion along the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain, are the cause of vision.

Isaac Newton

#73. 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.

Isaac Newton

#74. I know not how I seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with while the vast ocean of undiscovered truth lay before me.

Isaac Newton

#75. The great Sir Isaac Newton, He once made a valid proclamation, That the forces equal to a nominated mass, when multiplied by acceleration That was the law of motion.

Richard Digance

#76. 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.

Isaac Newton

#77. My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

Isaac Newton

#78. If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar
results.

Isaac Newton

#79. All knowledge and understanding of the Universe was no more than playing with stones and shells on the seashore of the vast imponderable ocean of truth.

Isaac Newton

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

Isaac Newton

#81. Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent.

Isaac Newton

#82. Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation

Isaac Newton

#83. The kingdoms represented by the second and third Beasts, or the Bear and Leopard, are again described by Daniel in his last Prophecy written in the third year of Cyrus over Babylon , the year in which he conquered Persia. For this Prophecy is a commentary upon the Vision of the Ram and He-Goat.

Isaac Newton

#84. Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy

Isaac Newton

#85. You have to make the rules, not follow them

Isaac Newton

#86. Those qualities of bodies that cannot be intended and remitted [i.e., qualities that cannot be increased and diminished] and that belong to all bodies on which experiments can be made should be taken as qualities of all bodies universally.

Isaac Newton

#87. 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 sea-shore, 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.

Isaac Newton

#88. For the Rays, to speak properly, have no Colour. In them there is nothing else than a certain power and disposition to stir up a sensation of this Colour or that.

Isaac Newton

#89. To derive two or three general Principles of Motion from Phaenomena, 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.

Isaac Newton

#90. It is reasonable that forces directed toward bodies depend on the nature and the quantity of matter of such bodies, as happens in the case of magnetic bodies.

Isaac Newton

#91. So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.

Stephen Hawking

#92. The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.

Isaac Newton

#93. If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb.

Aldous Huxley

#94. Mr Newton, a fellow of our College, and very young, being but the second year master of arts; but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency.

Isaac Barrow

#95. When the adversaries of Erasmus had got the Trinity into his edition, they threw by their manuscript as an old almanac out of date.

Isaac Newton

#96. Indeed, Isaac Newton himself, who introduced the concept of immutable laws which guided the planets and stars without divine intervention, believed that the elegance of these laws pointed to the existence of God.

Michio Kaku

#97. The way to chastity is not to struggle directly with incontinent thoughts but to avert the thoughts by some imployment, or by reading, or meditating on other things.

Isaac Newton

#98. If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Isaac Newton

#99. A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.

Isaac Newton

#100. 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.

Isaac Newton