What Isaac Newton thinks about humility

@isaac-newton · 20 positions · On ppll ↗

English mathematician and physicist (1642 to 1727), Lucasian professor at Cambridge and later Master of the Royal Mint; author of the Principia and the Opticks.

Isaac Newton did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Isaac Newton on humility. See everyone on humility

3 dated positions, c. 1713–1726, in their own words. Our reading of what Isaac Newton has said — not written or endorsed by them.

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1. c. 1713–1726

   Our readingWe know the attributes of things, never their real substance

   Their wordsWe have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of any thing is we know not.

   ↗The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Book III (tr. Andrew Motte, 1729; 1846 edition)en.wikisource.org All 4 from this book

3. c. 1713–1726

   Our readingI frame no hypotheses about the cause of gravity: whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is a hypothesis

   Their wordsBut hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phænomena is to be called an hypothesis

   ↗The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Book III (tr. Andrew Motte, 1729; 1846 edition)en.wikisource.org All 4 from this book

5. c. 1713–1726

   Our readingNever give up the evidence of experiments for dreams and fictions of our own devising

   Their wordsWe are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which uses to be simple, and always consonant to itself.

   ↗The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Book III (tr. Andrew Motte, 1729; 1846 edition)en.wikisource.org All 5 from this book