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Quotes 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, 1675

  • From 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 words

  • Life 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)

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