Pierre-Simon Laplace

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its anterior state and as the cause of the one which is to follow. An intelligence which, at a given instant, knew all the forces animating nature and the respective positions of the beings composing it, if moreover it were sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis, would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atom: nothing would be uncertain for it, and the future, like the past, would be present to its eyes.

Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective situation of the beings who compose it—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analysis—it would embrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the lightest atom; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future, as the past, would be present to its eyes.

It is an excellent method for the discovery of truth to proceed from the known to the unknown.

The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.

The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability.

Probability is relative, in part to this ignorance, in part to our knowledge.

We owe to Newton the great principle of universal gravitation, which has served as the basis for all subsequent astronomical discoveries.

What we know is little, what we are ignorant of is immense.

The regularity which astronomy makes us observe in the movements of the heavenly bodies, has led us to believe that the same regularity exists in all the phenomena of nature.

The more profound the truth, the more simple it is.

The curve of a planet's orbit is determined by the law of gravitation, and the initial conditions of its motion.

Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.

The theory of probability is nothing more than good sense reduced to a calculus.

The application of the calculus of probabilities to the natural sciences is one of the most important advances of modern times.

The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

We have so many facts, and so few theories.

The influence of the moon on the tides is one of the most striking proofs of the law of universal gravitation.

The probability of an event is the ratio of the number of cases favorable to it, to the total number of possible cases.

The more we know, the more we discover our ignorance.

The study of nature is the study of God.