quotes

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

Rule I. Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve.
Rule II. Therefore to the same effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes: as to respiration in man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America.
Rule III. Those properties of bodies that are both unchanging and common to all bodies within reach of our experiments are to be considered the universal properties of all bodies whatsoever.
Rule IV. ...Those hypotheses or generalizations which have been formulated in the light of experience are to be regarded as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, and they are to be so regarded until such time as other phenomena are discovered with which they are not in accord, thus necessitating their modification.

-- Isaac Newton, ``Rules of Reasoning'', Principia