Isaac Newton Quotes

140 Sourced Quotes

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
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
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
All material Things seem to have been composed of the hard and solid Particles... variously associated with the first Creation by the Counsel of an intelligent Agent. For it became him who created them to set them in order: and if he did so, it is 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.

Isaac Newton
That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of any thing else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a compentent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.

Isaac Newton
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
Now the smallest Particles of Matter may cohere by the strongest Attractions, and compose bigger Particles of weaker Virture.... There are therefore Agents in Nature able to make the Particles of Bodies stick together by very strong Attraction. And it is the Business of experimental Philosophy to find them out.

Isaac Newton
Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.

Isaac Newton
It is the glory of geometry that from so few principles, fetched from without, it is able to produce so many things.

Isaac Newton
From the same principles, I now demonstrate the frame of the System of the World.

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
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
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

Isaac Newton
Truth is the offspring of silence and unbroken meditation.

Isaac Newton
It may be so, there is no arguing against facts and experiments.

Isaac Newton
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
To understand the motions of the planets under the influence of gravity without knowing the cause of gravity is as good a progress in philosophy as to understand the frame of a clock and the dependence of the wheels upon one another without knowing the cause of the gravity of the weight.

Isaac Newton
Nor could the moon without some such force be retained in its orbit. If this force was too small, it would not sufficiently turn the moon out of a rectilinear course; if it were too great, it would turn it too much, and draw down the moon from its orbit towards the earth.

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

Isaac Newton
Pontus, instituted among all people, as an addition or corollary of devotion towards God, that festival days and assemblies should be celebrated to them who had contended for the faith (that is, to lie martyrs ).

Isaac Newton
Qu. 31. Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting and reflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the Phænomena of Nature?

Isaac Newton
The main Business of Natural Philosophy is to argue from Phaenomena without feigning Hypotheses, and to deduce Causes from Effects till we come to the very first Cause, which certainly is not mechanical; and not only to unfold the Mechanism of the World, but chiefly to resolve these, and to such like Questions.

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

Isaac Newton
The Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discovered and established as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.

Isaac Newton
The whole difficulty of philosophy seems to me to lie in investigating the forces of nature from the phenomena of motion, and in demonstrating that from these forces other phenomena will ensue.

Isaac Newton
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.

Isaac Newton
Do not all fixed bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit light and shine; and is not this emission performed by the vibrating motions of their parts?

Isaac Newton
For Nature is very consonant and conformable to herself.

Isaac Newton
So far I have accounted for the phenomena presented to us by the heavens and the sea by means of the force of gravity, but I have as yet assigned no cause to this gravity... I have not been able to deduce from phenomena the raison d'être of the properties of gravity and I have not set up hypotheses.

Isaac Newton