Isaac Newton Quotes - Page 4

An object that is at rest will tend to stay at rest. An object that is in motion will tend to stay in motion.

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

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

Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.

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

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.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

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

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.

He rules all things, not as the world soul but as the lord of all. And because of his dominion he is called Lord God Pantokrator". For “god" is a relative word and has reference to servants, and godhood is the lordship of God, not over his own body "as is supposed by those for whom God is the world soul', but over servants.

I understood. I have understood. I do understand.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 .

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

The daily disappearance and the subsequent rise of the sun appeared to many of the ancients as a true resurrection; thus, while the east came to be regarded as the source of light and warmth, happiness and glory, the west was associated with darkness and chill, decay and death. This led to the custom of burying the dead so as to face the east when they rose again, and of building temples and shrines with an opening toward the east. To effect this, Vitruvius, two thousand years ago, gave precise rules, which are still followed by Christian architects.

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.