Quotes from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

Isaac Newton ·  991 pages

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“This most beautiful system [The Universe] could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy


Kepler's laws, although not rigidly true, are sufficiently near to the truth to have led to the discovery of the law of attraction of the bodies of the solar system. The deviation from complete accuracy is due to the facts, that the planets are not of inappreciable mass, that, in consequence, they disturb each other's orbits about the Sun, and, by their action on the Sun itself, cause the periodic time of each to be shorter than if the Sun were a fixed body, in the subduplicate ratio of the mass of the Sun to the sum of the masses of the Sun and Planet; these errors are appreciable although very small, since the mass of the largest of the planets, Jupiter, is less than 1/1000th of the Sun's mass.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy


“Resistance is usually ascribed to bodies at rest, and impulse to those in motion; but motion and rest, as commonly conceived, are only relatively distinguished; nor are those bodies always truly at rest, which commonly are taken to be so.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy


“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy


“the one as much as it advances that of the other. If a body impinge upon another, and by its force change the motion of the other, that body also (because of the equality of the mutual pressure) will undergo an equal change, in its own motion, towards the contrary part.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy



“Hypotheses non fingo (Latin for "I feign no hypotheses", "I frame no hypotheses", or "I contrive no hypotheses")”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy


About the author

Isaac Newton
Born place: in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, England, The United Kingdom
Born date January 4, 1643
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