Pierre-Simon Laplace Quotes

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

Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.

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

Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order.

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

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

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

Nature laughs at the difficulties of integration.

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

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

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

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.

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

The telescope sweeps the sky without finding God.

Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.

Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.

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

Such is the advantage of a well constructed language that its simplified notation often becomes the source of profound theories.

Man follows only phantoms.

Said about Napier's logarithms: . . . by shortening the labors doubled the life of the astronomer.

I have no need for that hypothesis.

The mind has its illusions as the sense of sight; and in the same manner that the sense of feeling corrects the latter, reflection and calculation correct the former.

Probability theory is nothing more than common sense reduced to calculation. -1819

Your Excellency, I have no need of this hypothesis.