Isaac Newton Quotes

140 Sourced Quotes

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.

Isaac Newton
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.

Isaac Newton
Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

Isaac Newton
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
The quantity of matter is the measure of the same, arising from its density and bulk conjointly.

Isaac Newton
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Isaac Newton
When a man is taken in a mystical sense, his qualities are often signified by his actions, and by the circumstances of things about him. So a Ruler is signified by his riding on a beast; a Warrior and Conqueror, by his having a sword and bow; a potent man, by his gigantic stature; a Judge, by weights and measures... the affliction or persecution which a people suffers in laboring to bring forth a new kingdom, by the pain of a woman in labor to bring forth a man-child; the dissolution of a body politic or ecclesiastic, by the death of a man or beast; and the revival of a dissolved dominion, by the resurrection of the dead.

Isaac Newton
Are not the Rays of Light in passing by the edges and sides of Bodies, bent several times backwards and forwards, with a motion like that of an Eel? And do not the three Fringes of colour'd Light... arise from three such bendings?

Isaac Newton
The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

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

Isaac Newton
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
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.

Isaac Newton
Who is a liar, saith John, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist that denyeth the Father & the Son. And we are authorized also to call him God: for the name of God is in him. Exod. 23.21. And we must believe also that by his incarnation of the Virgin he came in the flesh not in appearance only but really & truly, being in all things made like unto his brethren (Heb. 2 17) for which reason he is called also the son of man.

Isaac Newton
No more causes of natural things should be admitted than are both true and sufficient to explain their phenomena.

Isaac Newton
Useful Things, though Mechanical, are justly preferable to useless Speculations in Geometry, as we learn from Pappus.

Isaac Newton
If instead of sending the Observations of seamen to able Mathematicians at Land, the Land would send able Mathematicians to Sea, it would signify much more to the improvement of Navigation and safety of Men's lives and estates on the aliment.

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

Isaac Newton
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.

Isaac Newton
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.

Isaac Newton
The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish these properties by experiment, and then to proceed more slowly to hypothesis for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

Isaac Newton
When I wrote my treatise about our System, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men, for the belief of the Deity, & nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.

Isaac Newton
Do not Bodies act upon Light at a distance, and by their action bend its Rays; and is not this action (caeteris paribus) [all else being equal] strongest at the least distance?

Isaac Newton
I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

Isaac Newton
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
Abel was righteous & Noah was a preacher of righteousness & by his righteousness he was saved from the flood. Christ is called the righteous & by his righteousness we are saved & except our righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees we shall not enter into the kingdome of heaven. Righteousness is the religion of the kingdom of heaven & even the property of God himself towards man. Righteousness & Love are inseparable for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

Isaac Newton