Pierre-Simon Laplace Quotes

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• All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Beauty, Art, Nature

  82 Copy quote

• What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Biographies, Knows

  "Budget of Paradoxes". Book by Augustus De Morgan, 1866.

  38 Copy quote

• Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Probability Theory, Common Sense, Calculations

  "Théorie Analytique Des Probabilités". Book by Pierre-Simon Laplace, second edition, 1814.

  47 Copy quote

• Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eye.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Eye, Past, Data

  Oeuvres vol. 7, introduction (1812 - 1820)

  46 Copy quote

• The most important questions of life are indeed, for the most part, really only problems of probability.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Risk, Important, Problem

  37 Copy quote

• Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Nature, Laughing, Mathematics

  "The Armchair Science Reader". Book by Isabel S. Gordon and Sophie Sorkin, 1959.

  31 Copy quote

• The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Weight, Claims, Evidence

  "Theeorie analytique des probabilites". Book by Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1812.

  19 Copy quote

• To Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God: Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Needs, Mechanic, Hypothesis

  37 Copy quote

• Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Truth, Order, Law

  38 Copy quote

• It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Education, Appreciation, Mean

  "Return to Mathematical Circles". Book by Howard Eves, 1988.

  31 Copy quote

• The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which of times they are unable to account.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Probability Theory, Appreciate

  "Théorie Analytique Des Probabilités". Book by Pierre-Simon Laplace, second edition, 1814.

  23 Copy quote

• What we know is not much. What we don't know is enormous.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Famous Last Words, Enormous, Last Words

  "Budget of Paradoxes". Book by Augustus De Morgan, 1866.

  19 Copy quote

• Do you believe in god? I have no need for that hypothesis, he may be around though.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Believe, Needs, May

  17 Copy quote

• Read Euler, read Euler. He is the master of us all.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Masters, Euler

  Article by Gugliemo Libri in the Journal des Savants, p. 51, January 1846.

  9 Copy quote

• The simplicity of nature is not to be measured by that of our conceptions. Infinitely varied in its effects, nature is simple only in its causes, and its economy consists in producing a great number of phenomena, often very complicated, by means of a small number of general laws.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Nature, Mean, Science

  16 Copy quote

• His last words, according to De Morgan: Man follows only phantoms.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Men, Lasts, Phantoms

  33 Copy quote

• The word 'chance' then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another in no apparent order. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Science

  12 Copy quote

• Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe. Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. Later when told by Napoleon about the incident, Lagrange commented: Ah, but that is a fine hypothesis. It explains so many things.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Book, Needs, World

  21 Copy quote

• The telescope sweeps the sky without finding God.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Sky, Telescopes

  12 Copy quote

• The theory of probabilities is basically only common sense reduced to a calculus. It makes one estimate accurately what right-minded people feel by a sort of instinct, often without being able to give a reason for it.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, People, Common Sense

  Pierre-Simon Laplace (2012). “Pierre-Simon Laplace Philosophical Essay on Probabilities: Translated from the fifth French edition of 1825 With Notes by the Translator”, p.124, Springer Science & Business Media

  4 Copy quote

• I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Believe, Long, Honor

  15 Copy quote

• What we know here is very little, but what we are ignorant of is immense.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Ignorant

  12 Copy quote

• Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Inspirational, Witty, Humorous

  12 Copy quote

• Man follows only phantoms.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Math, Science, Men

  "Budget of Paradoxes". Book by Augustus De Morgan, 1866.

  6 Copy quote

• If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event (prises de l'événement), are to each other as the probabilities of the event, given the causes: and the probability of each cause is equal to the probability of the event, given that cause, divided by the sum of all the probabilities of the event, given each of the causes.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Numbers, Events

  12 Copy quote

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