Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRSwas an English physicist and mathematicianwho is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for the development of calculus...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth4 January 1643
CityWoolsthorpe, England
To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.
What is there in places empty of matter? and Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another without dense matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain? and Whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? To what end are comets? and Whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentrick, while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very excentrick? and What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another?
The wonderful arrangement and harmony of the cosmos would only originate in the plan of an almighty omniscient being. This is and remains my greatest comprehension.
If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.
I can measure the motion of bodies but I cannot measure human folly.
The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn.
To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads.
Oh Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief done! [Apocryphal]
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
What the Latins have done in this text (1 John v, 7) the Greeks have done to Paul (1 Tim. iii, 16). They now read, "Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh"; whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome as well as the rest, read, "Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh." Our English version makes it yet a little stronger. It reads, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh."
The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-living agent.
If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.