“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.”

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.

I do not think that this [the universe] can be explained only by natural causes, and are forced to impute to the wisdom and ingenuity of an intelligent.

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.

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

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.

Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external.

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

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

God created everything by number, weight and measure.

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

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.

Oh Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest the mischief done!

To arrive at the simplest truth requires years of contemplation.

Hypotheses should be subservient only in explaining the properties of things but not assumed in determining them, unless so far as they may furnish experiments.

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.

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

But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe – and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

I have come to see the nonsense of attempting to describe fine scenery. There is no such possibility. If scenery could be adequately reproduced in words, there would have been no need of God’s making it in reality.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.

However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Savage, despicable evil. That’s what we were fighting in Iraq. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy ‘savages.’ There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there.

No; I did not hate him. The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings. I can say only that I knew the gnawing of a desire for vengeance on him that was a pain in itself and that exceeded all the bounds of language.

The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings.

What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it?