100 Quotes by Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton stands as one of history's greatest minds, revolutionizing our understanding of the physical universe through his groundbreaking contributions to mathematics and physics. His formulation of the laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation laid the foundation for classical mechanics, reshaping humanity's perception of the cosmos. Newton's monumental work, "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica," remains a cornerstone of scientific thought, displaying his unparalleled ability to intertwine theory with empirical evidence.
Beyond physics, his work in mathematics, such as the development of calculus, has permeated countless scientific disciplines. Newton's legacy is a testament to the power of relentless inquiry, rigorous methodology, and the potential of a single individual to reshape the contours of human knowledge.
Isaac Newton Quotes
Truth is ever to be found in simplicity. (Meaning)
Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation. (Meaning)
What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean. (Meaning)
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people. (Meaning)
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. (Meaning)
Nature is pleased with simplicity. (Meaning)
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction. (Meaning)
Errors are not in the art but in the artificers. (Meaning)
To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me. (Meaning)
Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth. (Meaning)
We build too many walls and not enough bridges. (Meaning)
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess. (Meaning)
Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion. (Meaning)
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success. (Meaning)
A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true. (Meaning)
God created everything by number, weight and measure. (Meaning)
I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all. (Meaning)
The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments. (Meaning)
Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes. (Meaning)
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. (Meaning)
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence. (Meaning)
Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. (Meaning)
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants. (Meaning)
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Meaning)
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. (Meaning)
All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer. (Meaning)
You have to make the rules, not follow them (Meaning)
He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God. (Meaning)
Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth. (Meaning)
I do not feign hypotheses. (Meaning)
Physics, beware of metaphysics. (Meaning)
The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. (Meaning)
What goes up must come down. (Meaning)
I can see so far because I stood on the shoulders of giants. (Meaning)
Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors. (Meaning)
I feign no hypotheses. (Meaning)
Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.
What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.
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.
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence.
Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
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.
All my discoveries have been made in answer to prayer.
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
"If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results."
Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, "By thinking about it all the time.
He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.
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.
I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
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 centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature with the light of the sun.
As a blind man has no idea of colors, so we have no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.
What goes up must come down.
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.
You have to make the rules, not follow them
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.
It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they would understand the frame of the world must endeavor to reduce their knowledge to all possible simplicity, so must it be in seeking to understand these visions.
God created everything by number, weight and measure.
Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust his skill and thank him for his prescription.
To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me
No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being, because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.
If two angels were sent down from heaven -one to conduct an empire and the other to sweep the streets -they would feel no inclination to change employment because an angel would know that no matter what we are doing, it's an opportunity to bring joy, deepen our understanding and expand our life.
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.
The wonderful arrangement and harmony of the cosmos would only originate in the plan of an almighty omniscient being. This is and remains my greatest comprehension.
The other part of the true religion is our duty to man. We must love our neighbour as our selves, we must be charitable to all men for charity is the greatest of graces, greater then even faith or hope & covers a multitude of sins. We must be righteous & do to all men as we would they should do to us.
If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.
The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.
There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.
I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.
Daniel was in the greatest credit amongst the Jews, till the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian . And to reject his prophecies, is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his prophecy concerning the Messiah .
When two forces unite, their efficiency double.
"The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy also into contempt.
The design of God was much otherwise. He gave this and the Prophecies of the Old Testament, not to gratify mens curiosities by enabling them to foreknow things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and his own Providence, not the Interpreters, be then manifested thereby to the world."
Physics, beware of metaphysics.
If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force.
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.
No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.
OUR ORDINATION: Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 – 1747 About the times of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.
The best way to understanding is a few good examples.
And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity; and he is present from infinity to infinity; he rules all things, and he knows all things that happen or can happen.
We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.
An object that is at rest will tend to stay at rest. An object that is in motion will tend to stay in motion.
Yet one thing secures us what ever betide, the scriptures assures us that the Lord will provide.
Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and other suchlike considerations, always have, and always will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, who has all things in his power, and who is therefore to be feared.
Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.
We are not to consider the world as the body of God: he is an uniform being, void of organs, members, or parts; and they are his creatures, subordinate to him, and subservient to his will.
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.
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
If you are affronted it is better to pass it by in silence, or with a jest, though with some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge. If you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defenders.
Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, 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.
I can see so far because I stood on the shoulders of giants.
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore.
Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.
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.
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.
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.
The great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
Godliness consists in the knowledge love & worship of God, Humanity in love, righteousness & good offices towards man.
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.
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.
This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer or maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?
Impressed force is the action exerted on a body to change its state either of resting or of moving uniformly straight forward.
Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.
Whence arises all that order and beauty we see in the world?
Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another; and may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light which enter into their composition? The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.
The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn.
Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.
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.
Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowels) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore legs or two wings or two arms on the shoulders & two legs on the hips one on either side & no more?
To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age
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?
To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.
If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
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.
I do not define time, space, place, and motion, as being well known to all. Only I must observe, that the common people conceive those quantities under no other notions but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain prejudices, for the removing of which it will be convenient to distinguish them into absolute and relative, true and apparent, mathematical and common.
The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living agent.
The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intension nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to fill bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.
Nature is very consonant and conformable with herself.
The degree and duration of the torment of these degenerate and anti-Christian people, should be no other than would be approved of by those angels who had ever labored for their salvation, and that Lamb who had redeemed them with his most precious blood.
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 than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.
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.
Pictures, propagated by motion along the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain, are the cause of vision.
My principal method for defeating error and heresy is by establishing the truth. One purposes to fill a bushel with tares, but if I can fill it first with wheat, I may defy his attempts.
It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
As Attraction is stronger in small Magnets than in great ones in proportion to their Bulk, and Gravity is greater in the Surfaces of small Planets than in those of great ones in proportion to their bulk, and small Bodies are agitated much more by electric attraction than great ones; so the smallness of the Rays of Light may contribute very much to the power of the Agent by which they are refracted.
The Prophecies of Daniel are all of them related to one another, as if they were but several parts of one general Prophecy, given at several times. The first is the easiest to be understood, and every following Prophecy adds something new to the former.
I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.
What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external.
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.
What the Latins have done in this text (1 John v, 7) the Greeks have done to Paul (1 Tim. iii, 16). They now read, "Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh"; whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome as well as the rest, read, "Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh." Our English version makes it yet a little stronger. It reads, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh."
All the characters of the Passion agree to the year 34; and that is the only year to which they all agree.
Where both are friends, it is right to prefer truth.
I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures I carried these calculations [of Pi], having no other business at the time
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.
Hypotheses non fingo. I frame no hypotheses.
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
I feign no hypotheses.
The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.
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.
Therefore, the causes assigned to natural effects of the same kind must be, so far as possible, the same.
Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as have to do with her.
When the adversaries of Erasmus had got the Trinity into his edition, they threw by their manuscript as an old almanac out of date.
The latest authors, like the most ancient, strove to subordinate the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics.
I understood. I have understood. I do understand.
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.
If the ancient churches, in debating and deciding the greatest mysteries of religion, knew nothing of these two texts, I understand not why we should be so fond of them now the debate is over.
― Isaac Newton Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
