Isaac Newton quotes

Born
25 December 1642, Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England.

Died
20 March 1726.

Occupation
Mathematician, astronomer, physicist.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book PhilosophiƦ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, first published in 1687, laid the foundations of classical mechanics.

Genius is patience.
– Isaac Newton

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible that in any profane history.
– Isaac Newton

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.
– Isaac Newton

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
– Isaac Newton

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.
– Isaac Newton

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
– Isaac Newton

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.
– Isaac Newton

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
– Isaac Newton

All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the ‘Lord God.’
– Isaac Newton

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
– Isaac Newton

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.
– Isaac Newton

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.
– Isaac Newton

Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.
– Isaac Newton

Are not rays of light very small bodies emitted from shining substances?
– Isaac Newton

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.
– Isaac Newton

It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
– Isaac Newton

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
– Isaac Newton

The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent Agent.
– Isaac Newton

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
– Isaac Newton

The proper method for inquiring after the properties of things is to deduce them from experiments.
– Isaac Newton

This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.
– Isaac Newton

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.
– Isaac Newton

Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine Power, it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the Sun; and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this System to an intelligent Agent.
– Isaac Newton

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.
– Isaac Newton

In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.
– Isaac Newton

God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.
– Isaac Newton

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.
– 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 now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
– Isaac Newton

The centre of the system of the world is immovable.
– Isaac Newton

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.
– Isaac Newton

An object in motion tends to remain in motion along a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force.
– Isaac Newton

The moon gravitates towards the earth and by the force of gravity is continually drawn off from a rectilinear motion and retained in its orbit.
– Isaac Newton

The Ignis Fatuus is a vapor shining without heat.
– Isaac Newton

Nothing can be divided into more parts than it can possibly be constituted of. But matter (i.e. finite) cannot be constituted of infinite parts.
– Isaac Newton

To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science.
– Isaac Newton

Christ comes as a thief in the night, & it is not for us to know the times & seasons which God hath put into his own breast.
– Isaac Newton

Opposite to godliness is atheism in profession, and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind, that it never had many professors.
– Isaac Newton

God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance.
– Isaac Newton

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.
– Isaac Newton

The smaller the planets are, they are, other things being equal, of so much the greater density; for so the powers of gravity on their several surfaces come nearer to equality. They are likewise, other things being equal, of the greater density, as they are nearer to the sun.
– Isaac Newton

God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable 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.
– Isaac Newton

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

What goes up must come down.
– Isaac Newton

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
– Isaac Newton

Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
– Isaac Newton

I have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the force of gravity, but I have not yet assigned a cause to gravity.
– Isaac Newton

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.
– Isaac Newton