I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

—Isaac Newton

About Isaac Newton

Portrait of Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton ( ; 4 January 1643 [O.S. 25 December 1642] – 31 March 1727 [O.S. 20 March 1726]) was an English polymath who was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, historian and inventor. He was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His...

More quotations from Isaac Newton

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

—Isaac Newton

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

—Isaac Newton

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

—Isaac Newton

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.

—Isaac Newton

patience time problem solving clarity

More quotations tagged with “discovery”

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

—Frank Herbert

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

—Douglas Adams

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.

—Daniel J. Boorstin

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.

—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

History

11 Jul 2015 Added