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. — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
It is interesting thus to follow the intellectual truths of analysis in the phenomena of nature. This correspondence, of which the system of the… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
“L'homme ne poursuit que des chimères. ( Man follows only phantoms .) { His true last words, according to Augustus De Morgan .}” — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
Such is the advantage of a well constructed language that its simplified notation often becomes the source of profound theories. — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe. Laplace: Sire, I… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness. — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
“...by shortening the labours doubled the life of the astronomer. { On the benefit of John Napier 's logarithms .}” — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
We are so far from knowing all the forces of nature and their various modes of action that it would be unworthy of the… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
The word 'chance' then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
The simplicity of the law by which the celestial bodies move, and the relations of their masses and distances, permit analysis to follow their… — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
His last words, according to De Morgan: Man follows only phantoms. — Pierre-Simon Laplace Copy Share Image
