Pierre-Simon Laplace Quotes

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[It] may be laid down as a general rule that, if the result of a long series of precise observations approximates a simple relation so closely that the remaining difference is undetectable by observation and may be attributed to the errors to which they are liable, then this relation is probably that of nature.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The simplicity of nature is not to be measured by that of our conceptions. Infinitely varied in its effects, nature is simple only in its causes, and its economy consists in producing a great number of phenomena, often very complicated, by means of a small number of general laws.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Life's most important questions are, for the most part, nothing but probability problems.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The mind has its illusions as the sense of sight; and in the same manner that the sense of feeling corrects the latter, reflection and calculation correct the former.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Such is the advantage of a well constructed language that its simplified notation often becomes the source of profound theories.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
It is remarkable that a science which began with the consideration of games of chance, should have become the most important object of human knowledge.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
But the language of analysis, most perfect of all, being in itself a powerful instrument of discoveries, its notations, especially when they are necessary and happily conceived, are so many germs of new calculi.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Contemplated as one grand whole, astronomy is the most beautiful monument of the human mind; the noblest record of its intelligence.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
We must not measure the simplicity of the laws of nature by our facility of conception; but when those which appear to us the most simple, accord perfectly with observations of the phenomena, we are justified in supposing them rigorously exact.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
All events, even those which on account of their insignificance do not seem to follow the great laws of nature, are a result of it just as necessarily as the revolutions of the sun.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Strictly speaking it may even be said that nearly all our knowledge is problematical; and in the small number of things which we are able to know with certainty, even in the mathematical sciences themselves, the principal means for ascertaining truth - induction and analogy - are based on probabilities.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Even in the mathematical sciences, our principal instruments to discover the truth are induction and analogy.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
Had man restricted himself to a mere compilation of facts, the sciences would present nothing but a barren nomenclature, and a knowledge of the great laws of nature would never have been attained.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
The knowledge of the method which has guided a man of genius is not less serviceable to the progress of the sciences, and even to his own glory, than his discoveries.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
We must suppose that the gravitating fluid has a velocity which is at least a hundred millions of times greater than that of light.

Pierre-Simon Laplace
We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its anterior state and as the cause of the one that is to follow.

Pierre-Simon Laplace