Pierre-Simon Laplace

All certainty which does not consist in mathematical demonstration is nothing more than the highest probability.

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 are so far from knowing all the agents of nature and their diverse modes of action that it would not be philosophical to deny phenomena solely because they are inexplicable in the actual state of our knowledge.

The stability of the equilibrium of the seas, the atmosphere, and the climates depends upon causes which analysis alone can follow up to their effects.

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.

The method of least squares, by its simplicity and universality, seems to be the best that can be employed in the adjustment of observations.

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

The theory of chance consists in reducing all the events of the same kind to a certain number of cases equally possible.

The difference of opinion which exists among philosophers on the nature of the principles of the theory of probabilities comes from the different meanings they attach to the word probability.

The system of the world offers, in the movements of the celestial bodies, the most certain monument of the existence of the Deity, and the most profound study of his wisdom.

The analytical method, which I have followed in this work, is the most certain means of arriving at the truth.

The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their motions up to the limits of time; and to determine the state of the system in the past and in the future.

The universe, if we consider it in its greatest extent, is nothing else than an immense ocean of instability, where order and disorder succeed each other alternately.

Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order.

The discovery of the law of universal gravitation is the most beautiful discovery ever made by man.

The happiness of a people is the only legitimate object of government.

The most important service which can be rendered to a country is to add a useful plant to its culture.

The history of science is science itself; the history of the individual, the individual.

The analytical equations, unknown to the ancients, which Descartes introduced, are one of the most powerful instruments that the human mind has ever obtained.

The laws of nature are so powerful, that nothing can withstand them; and so simple, that they are all derived from a very small number of primary truths.