Biographies Quote by Pierre-Simon Laplace

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

“L'homme ne poursuit que des chimères. ( Man follows only phantoms .) { His true last words, according to Augustus De Morgan .}”

— Pierre-Simon Laplace

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

— Pierre-Simon Laplace

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

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

— Pierre-Simon Laplace

“...by shortening the labours doubled the life of the astronomer. { On the benefit of John Napier 's logarithms .}”

— Pierre-Simon Laplace

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Pierre-Simon Laplace