Pierre-Simon Laplace Quotes

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The probability of events serves to determine the hope or the fear of persons interested in their existence.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
There is no question here of vague causes, which cannot be submitted to analysis, and which the imagination modifies at pleasure to accommodate them to the phenomena.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The phenomena of nature are most often enveloped by so many strange circumstances, and so great a number of disturbing causes mix their influence, that it is very difficult to recognize them. We may arrive at them only by multiplying the observations or the experiences, so that the strange effects finally destroy reciprocally each other.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Of all the natural sciences, astronomy is that which presents the longest series of discoveries. The first appearance of the heavens is indeed far removed from that enlarged view, by which we comprehend at the present day, the past and future states of the system of the world. Translated Henry H. Harte

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The philosopher who is really useful to the cause of science, is he who, uniting to a fertile imagination, a rigid severity in investigation and observation, is at once tormented by the desire of ascertaining the cause of the phenomena, and by the fear of deceiving himself in that which he assigns.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
A luminous star, of the same density as the Earth, and whose diameter should be two hundred and fifty times larger than that of the Sun, would not, in consequence of its attraction, allow any of its rays to arrive at us; it is therefore possible that the largest luminous bodies in the universe, may, through this cause, be invisible.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
One of the great advantages of the calculus of probabilities is to teach us to distrust first opinions.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The sciences, on the contrary, without bounds like nature herself, increase infinitely by the labours of successive generations the most perfect work; by raising them to a height from which they can never again descend, gives birth to new discoveries which new works which efface the former from which they originated.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
One of the strongest passions in a man of genius, is the love of truth. Full of the enthusiasm which a great discovery inspires, he burns with ardor to disseminate it, and the obstacles which ignorance and superstition, armed with power, oppose to it, only stimulate and increase his energy.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets doubtless exists in all phenomena. The curve described by a simple molecule or air or vapour is regulated in a manner just as certain as the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which comes from our ignorance.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The progress of astronomy depends on these three things: the measure of time, that of angles, and the perfection of optical instruments. The two first are nearly as perfect as we could wish; it is therefore to the improvement of the latter that our attention should be directed.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Analysis and natural philosophy owe their most important discoveries to this fruitful means, which is called induction. Newton was indebted to it for his theorem of the binomial and the principle of universal gravity.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Chance has not reality in itself; it is only a term fit to designate our ignorance concerning the manner in which the different parts of a phenomenon are arranged among themselves and in relation to the rest of Nature.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Thus, differential calculus has all the exactitude of other algebraic operations.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Nature is so various in her productions and phenomena, that it is extremely difficult to ascertain their causes, hence it is requisite for a great number of men to unite their intellect and exertions in order to comprehend and develop her laws.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Amid the variable and unknown causes which we comprehend under the name of chance, and which render uncertain and irregular the march of events, we see appearing, in the measure that they multiply, a striking regularity which seems to hold to a design and which has been considered as a proof of Providence.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Our passions, our prejudices, and dominating opinions, by exaggerating the probabilities which are favorable to them and by attenuating the contrary probabilities, are the abundant sources of dangerous illusions.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Man appears, upon a small planet, almost imperceptible in the vast extent of the solar system, itself only an insensible point in the immensity of space.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
In things which are only probable the difference of the data, which each man has in regard to them, is one of the principal causes of the diversity of opinions which prevail in regard to the same objects.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The opinion that man has long been placed in the centre of the universe, considering himself the special object of the cares of nature, leads each individual to make himself the centre of a more or less extended sphere and to believe that hazard has preference for him.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Astronomy, considered in the most general way, is a great problem of mechanics, the arbitrary data of which are the elements of the celestial movements; its solution depends both on the accuracy of observations and on the perfection of analysis.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Induction, analogy, hypotheses founded upon facts and rectified continually by new observations, a happy tact given by nature and strengthened by numerous comparisons of its indications with experience, such are the principal means for arriving at truth.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Analysis confirms what simple common sense teaches us, namely, the correctness of judgments is as much more probable as the judges are more numerous and more enlightened.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
It is to the influence of the opinion of those whom the multitude judges best informed and to whom it has been accustomed to give its confidence in regard to the most important matters of life that the propagation of those errors [pertaining to errors of truth] is due which in times of ignorance have covered the face of the earth.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
If in a fine night, and in a place where the horizon is uninterrupted, we follow with attention the appearance of the heavens, it will be seen to vary at every instant.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The theory of probabilities is basically only common sense reduced to a calculus. It makes one estimate accurately what right-minded people feel by a sort of instinct, often without being able to give a reason for it.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The word 'chance' then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another in no apparent order. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
One sees, from this Essay, that the theory of probabilities is basically just common sense reduced to calculus; it makes one appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct, often without being able to account for it.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.

Pierre-Simon Laplace