Do not several sorts of Rays make Vibrations of several bignesses, which according to their bigness excite Sensations of several Colours, much after the manner that the Vibrations of the Air, according to their several bignesses excite Sensations of several Sounds? And particularly do not the most refrangible Rays excite the shortest Vibrations for making a Sensation of deep violet, the least refrangible the largest form making a Sensation of deep red, and several intermediate sorts of Rays, Vibrations of several intermediate bignesses to make Sensations of several intermediate Colours? ibid. Query XIII
Is not the Heat of the warm Room convey’d through the Vacuum by the Vibrations of a much subtiler Medium than Air, which after the Air was drawn out remained in the Vacuum? And is not this Medium the same with that Medium by which Light is refracted and reflected and by whose Vibrations Light communicates Heat to Bodies, and is put into Fits of easy Reflexion and easy Transmission?
... And do not hot Bodies communicate their Heat to contiguous cold ones, by the Vibrations of this Medium propagated from them into the cold ones? And is not this Medium exceedingly more rare and subtile than the Air, and exceedingly more elastick and active? And doth it not readily pervade all Bodies? And is it not (by its elastick force) expanded through all the Heavens? ibid. Query XVIII
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? ibid. Query XXVIII
And so, supposing that light impinging on a refracting or reflecting ethereal superficies puts it into a vibrating motion, that physical superficies being by the perpetual applause of rays always kept in a vibrating motion, and the ether therein continually expanded and compressed by turns, if a ray of light impinge on it when it is much compressed, I suppose it is then too dense and stiff to let the ray through, and so reflects it; but the rays that impinge on it at other times, when it is either expanded by the interval between two vibrations or not too much compressed and condensed, go through and are refracted. Isaac Newton, article 1675, ‘Hypothesis Explaining the Properties of Light’
And now to explain colours. I suppose that as bodies excite sounds of various tones and consequently vibrations, in the air of various bignesses, so when rays of light by impinging on the stiff refracting superficies excite vibrations in the ether, these rays excite vibrations of various bignesses. ibid.
Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowells) and just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore leggs or two wings or two arms on the sholders & two leggs on the hipps one on either side & no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel & contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom & the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, & within transparent juyces with a crystalline Lens in the middle & a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped & fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light & what was its refraction & fit the eys of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These & such like considerations always have & ever will prevail with man kind to believe that there is a being who made all things & has all things in his power & who is therfore to be feared. Isaac Newton, manuscript ‘A Short Schem of the True Religion’
The commandment to return and to build Jerusalem ... may perhaps come forth not from the Jews themselves, but from some other kingdom friendly to them, and precede their return from captivity, and give occasion to it. Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, 1733
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy. Isaac Newton
A few scattered persons which God hath chosen ... can set themselves sincerely and honestly to search after truth. Isaac Newton
Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study. John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams
Newton is known for humbly declaring that he had achieved his great breakthroughs by ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. Though this may be true in part, it is largely humbug. Newton was hardly humble, and it would be just as true to say that he achieved greatness by stamping on the shoulders of giants. When others, such as Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz, made breakthroughs in fields he was also researching, Newton fought ferociously to deny them credit for their work. Michael Brooks, ‘Free Radicals: The Secret Anarchy of Science’ 2012
A student of the history of physical science will assign to Newton a further importance which the average man can hardly appreciate ... the separation ... of positive scientific inquiries from questions of ultimate causation. Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science; a Historical and Critical Essay, 1925
The clearest appreciation of the relation between the empirical elements in a scientific system and the hypothetical elements derived from a philosophy of nature. Alistair Cameron Crombie
Perhaps the greatest advance in thought that a single individual was ever privileged to make. Albert Einstein
Newton had other postulates by which he could get the law of angular momentum, but Newtonian laws were wrong. There’s no forces; it’s all a lot of baloney. The particles don’t have orbits, and so on. Richard Feynman, The Relation of Mathematics to Physics
Newton was the greatest genius that ever existed, and the most fortunate, for we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish. Joseph Louis Lagrange
We shall find it more conducive to scientific progress to recognise, with Newton, the ideas of time and space as distinct, at least in thought, from that of the material system whose relations these ideas serve to co-ordinate. James Clerk Maxwell, Matter and Motion, 1876
His model led directly to Boyle’s law. Probably the greatest scientist ever, Newton managed to get the right answer from a model that was wrong in every possible way. Brian L Silver, The Ascent of Science, 1998
Let mortals rejoice
That there has existed such and so great
An Ornament of Human Nature. Isaac Newton’s epitaph at Westminster Cathedral
Newton: he could write the laws of Nature in perfect mathematical sentences. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey III: When Knowledge Conquered Fear