Snape’s patronus was a doe,? said Harry, ’the same as my mother’s because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from when they were children.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

The way to chastity is not to struggle directly with incontinent thoughts but to avert the thoughts by some imployment, or by reading, or meditating on other things.

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.

If I had stayed for other people to make my tools and things for me, I had never made anything.

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.

Gravity must be caused by an agent…but whether that agent be material or immaterial I leave to my readers.

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.

I understood. I have understood. I do understand.

Useful Things, though Mechanical, are justly preferable to useless Speculations in Geometry, as we learn from Pappus.

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

If flying from justice and feigning false excuses be arguments of a guilty conscience, we must allow that [someone] by doing these things has betrayed himself guilty.

Let me think… I wonder if an anvil will drop like an apple?

Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Daniel was in the greatest credit amongst the Jews, till the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian . And to reject his prophecies, is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his prophecy concerning the Messiah .

Bullialdus wrote that all force respecting the Sun as its center & depending on matter must be reciprocally in a duplicate ratio of the distance from the center.

The system of revealed truth which this Book contains is like that of the universe, concealed from common observation yet…the centuries have established its Divine origin.

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.

Cunning men never venture to frame false accusations without some considerable colour of circumstances handsomely laid together.

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.

The best and safest method of philosophizing seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish these properties by experiment, and then to proceed more slowly to hypothesis for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

Physics, beware of metaphysics.

Where both are friends, it is right to prefer truth.

The description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics.

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

Nature is very consonant and conformable with herself.

A vulgar mechanic can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road he is at a stand. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub.

Philosophy is such an impertinently litigious lady that a man had as good be engaged in lawsuits as have to do with her.

Have not the small Particles of Bodies certain Powers, Virtues or Forces, by which they act at a distance, not only upon the Rays of Light for reflecting, refracting and reflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the Phænomena of Nature?

I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses.

Godliness consists in the knowledge love & worship of God, Humanity in love, righteousness & good offices towards man.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.

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.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.

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.

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

I will not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all.

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

An object that is at rest will tend to stay at rest. An object that is in motion will tend to stay in motion.

I consider my greatest accomplishment to be lifelong celibacy.

I believe the more I study science, the more I believe in God.

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.

No sciences are better attested than the religion of the Bible.

This principle of nature being very remote from the conceptions of Philosophers, I forbore to describe it in that book, least I should be accounted an extravagant freak and so prejudice my Readers against all those things which were the main designe of the book.

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.

I have studied these things – you have not.

I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

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

Pictures, propagated by motion along the fibers of the optic nerves in the brain, are the cause of vision.

If you are affronted it is better to pass it by in silence, or with a jest, though with some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge. If you can keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your best defenders.

They who search after the Philosopher’s Stone [are] by their own rules obliged to a strict and religious life.

Hypotheses non fingo. I frame no hypotheses.

No being exists or can exist which is not related to space in some way. God is everywhere, created minds are somewhere, and the body is in the space that it occupies; and whatever is neither everywhere nor anywhere does not exist. And hence it follows that space is an effect arising from the first existence of being because when any being is postulated, space is postulated.

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

About the times of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.

A Heavenly Master governs all the world as Sovereign of the universe. We are astonished at Him by reason of His perfection, we honor Him and fall down before Him because of His unlimited power. From blind physical necessity, which is always and everywhere the same, no variety adhering to time and place could evolve, and 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.

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

For I see not what there is desirable in publick esteeme, were I able to acquire & maintaine it. It would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline.

Whence arises all that order and beauty we see in the world?

Don’t doubt the Creator because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of this universe.

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

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore.

God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.

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

The changing of Bodies into Light, and Light into Bodies, is very conformable to the Course of Nature, which seems delighted with Transmutations.

This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.

The seed of a tree has the nature of a branch or twig or bud. It is a part of the tree, but if separated and set in the earth to be better nourished, the embryo or young tree contained in it takes root and grows into a new tree.

To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.

Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.

There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.

The more time and devotion one spends in the worship of false gods, the less he is able to spend in that of the True One.

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.

Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied, “By thinking about it all the time.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age.

The best way to understanding is a few good examples.

Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust his skill and thank him for his prescription.

Yet one thing secures us what ever betide, the scriptures assures us that the Lord will provide.

If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.

It seems probable to me that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable particles.

All knowledge and understanding of the Universe was no more than playing with stones and shells on the seashore of the vast imponderable ocean of truth.

If I have done great things it’s because I was standing in the closet of smart men taking notes and then publishing their ideas as my own.

To any action there is always an opposite and equal reaction; in other words, the actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal and always opposite in direction.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results.

I know not how I seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with while the vast ocean of undiscovered truth lay before me.

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.

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

He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.

You have to make the rules, not follow them.

God created everything by number, weight, and measure.

Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.

What goes up must come down.

I see I have made my self a slave to Philosophy.

Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.

Nature is pleased with simplicity.

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.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been due more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

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.

Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation.

A passion for calculus can unlock new worlds.

No old Men (excepting Dr. Wallis) love Mathematicks.

Genius is patience.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.

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