I had not thought of this regular decrease of gravity, namely that it is as the inverse square of the distance; this is a new and highly remarkable property of gravity.

I do not believe anything very certainly, but everything very probably.

The world is my country. Science my religion.

It is surrounded by a thin flat ring, inclined to the ecliptic, and nowhere touches the body of the planet.

One may conceive light to spread successively, by spherical waves.

There are many degrees of Probable, some nearer Truth than others, in the determining of which lies the chief exercise of our Judgment.

It's evident God had no design to make a particular Enumeration in the Holy Scriptures, of all the Works of his Creation.

What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths.

The rest of the planets have their dress and furniture, nay and their inhabitants too, as well as this Earth of ours.

Here we may mount from this dull Earth, and viewing it from on high, consider whether Nature has laid out all her Cost and Finery upon this small Speck of Dirt.

I do not mind at all that Newton is not a Cartesian provided he does not offer us suppositions like that of attraction.

Laughter lights up the darkness.

As soon as you are trying to be funny or dramatic, that's when things start feeling fake and boring.

I think that if you keep banging at the door all you need is a little foothold, a little tiny foothold, and then the rest will take care of itself.

All honest labor becomes easy; it only becomes hard when done with unwillingness.

The key to our transformation is simply this: the better we know ourselves the better equipped we will be to make our choices wisely.

If you try too carefully to plan your life, the danger is that you will succeed-succeed in narrowing your options, closing off avenues of adventure that cannot now be imagined.

Wherever Christianity has produced what historians call a 'popular piety' claiming to be part of the national heritage, anti-Christian reaction among the intelligentsia has followed.

If you've got it, wear it.

I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.