in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait 'till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
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.
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And so if any one would suppose that æther (like our air) may contain particles which endeavour to recede from one another (for I do not know what this æther is) and that its particles are exceedingly smaller than those of air, or even than those of light: the exceeding smallness of its particles may contribute to the greatness of the force by which those particles may recede from one another, and thereby make that medium exceedingly more rare and elastick than air, and by consequence exceedingly less able to resist the motions of projectiles, and exceedingly more able to press upon gross bodies, by endeavouring to expand it self.
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Is not the heat of the warm room convey'd through the vacuum by the vibrations of a much subtiler medium than air, which after the air was drawn out remained in the vacuum? And is not this medium the same with that medium by which light is refracted and reflected and by whose vibrations light communicates heat to bodies, and is put into fits of easy reflexion and easy transmission? And do not hot bodies communicate their heat to contiguous cold ones, by the vibrations of this medium propagated from them into the cold ones? And is not this medium exceedingly more rare and subtile than the air, and exceedingly more elastick and active? And doth it not readily pervade all bodies? And is it not (by its elastick force) expanded through all the heavens?
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If I have done the public any service, it is due to patient thought.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.
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Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
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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 inflecting them, but also upon one another for producing a great part of the phenomena of nature?
How these attractions may be perform'd, I do not here consider. What I call attraction may be perform'd by impulse, or by some other means unknown to me. I use that word here to signify only in general any force by which bodies tend towards one another, whatsoever be the cause. For we must learn from the phaenomena of nature what bodies attract one another, and what are the laws and properties of the attraction, before we enquire the cause by which the attraction is perform'd, the attractions of gravity, magnetism and electricity, react to very sensible distances, and so have been observed by vulgar eyes, and there may be others which reach to so small distances as hitherto escape observation; and perhaps electrical attraction may react to such small distances, even without being excited by friction.
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God created everything by number, weight and measure.
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The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets.
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