QuotesQuotes from scientists and philosophers
Short lines from people who changed how we think: Hippocrates (about 460 to 370 BC), Marcus Aurelius (121 to 180), Rene Descartes (1596 to 1650), Blaise Pascal (1623 to 1662), Isaac Newton (1642 to 1727), Voltaire (1694 to 1778), Charles Darwin (1809 to 1882) and Thomas Edison (1847 to 1931).
Science
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke, 1675From so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (1859), closing wordsLife is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult.
Hippocrates, Aphorisms, translated by Francis Adams (1849)Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Thomas Edison, spoken remark, reported in Harper's Monthly, 1932
Philosophy
I think, therefore I am.
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method (1637)The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
Blaise Pascal, Pensees, translated by W. F. Trotter (1910)We must cultivate our garden.
Voltaire, Candide (1759), closing line
Marcus Aurelius
The universe is transformation: life is opinion.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4, translated by George Long (1862)The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6, translated by George Long (1862)Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7, translated by George Long (1862)No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10, translated by George Long (1862)
Nothing matches. Try a shorter word, or choose All.
The story behind each line
- "Standing on the shoulders of Giants": Newton wrote this in a letter to his fellow scientist Robert Hooke. The image is older than Newton and was already a saying in the Middle Ages. He was using it, not inventing it.
- "Endless forms most beautiful" is the last sentence of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), the book that set out the theory of evolution by natural selection.
- "Life is short, and Art long" opens the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, the Greek physician. "Art" here means the art of medicine: a lifetime is too short to learn it all. The Latin form, "Ars longa, vita brevis", is on our Latin phrases page.
- "I think, therefore I am": Descartes was looking for one thing he could not doubt. Even if he doubted everything, he reasoned, there must be a "he" doing the doubting. He wrote it first in French, and later in the Latin form "Cogito, ergo sum".
- "The heart has its reasons" is from Pascal's Pensees ("Thoughts"), notes found and published after his death.
- "We must cultivate our garden" is the closing line of Voltaire's Candide. After a tale of disasters, the characters decide to stop arguing about the world and do useful work close at hand.
- Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor who wrote the Meditations in Greek as private notes to himself, never meant for readers.
Translations
Most of these writers did not write in English, so the English words belong to a translator. Old translations are in the public domain. Newer ones are in copyright, and word the same thought differently. That is why you may see another version of a Marcus Aurelius or Pascal line elsewhere, and why this page names the translator and year. In an essay, add "translated by" after the title.
A caution about scientists and quotations
Great scientists attract invented quotations more than anyone. A line credited to a famous scientist with no book, letter or lecture named should be doubted. The Edison line here, for example, is given as a reported spoken remark, which is all the evidence allows.
Using these lines
Newton's line suits Teachers' Day and any vote of thanks. Darwin's suits a biology exhibition. Voltaire's is a fine close for a talk about doing one's own work well.
Good to know
- Most of these were not written in English. The translator and year are given where a line depends on one translation.
- The Marcus Aurelius lines use the 1862 English translation by George Long, which is in the public domain.