Isaac Newton

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

He that in the study of natural philosophy shall resolve to proceed upon nothing but demonstrations and sound knowledge, hath a very large field of materials of all sorts to divert and employ him.

The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.

For if the experiments which I relate be accurate, the science of colours will be a new one; for although colours have been observed from antiquity, yet the cause of their productions has remained unknown to this day.

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them.

The parts of all homogeneal hard bodies which fully touch one another, stick together with a very strong attraction.

What is there in places almost empty of air (such as the space between the planets) to hinder the free motion of bodies?

The attractive force of the earth acts to the greatest distance, and is observed in the fall of the moon, which is continually drawn towards the earth.

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

The whole difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this—from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena.

Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

I consider my experiments as a kind of play.

The true way of considering a thing is by its causes.

It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity.

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

The most beautiful order of the planets and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.

For it is the property of true philosophy to deduce the causes of all natural effects from the simplest possible principles.

He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who thinks seriously will believe in God.