Isaac Barrow quotes - page 2

Isaac Barrow was an English mathematician, theologian, and philosopher, renowned for his work in mathematics and as a mentor to Isaac Newton. As the first Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, his teachings laid important groundwork for the development of calculus. He contributed significantly to both mathematics and theology before his early death. Here are 31 of his quotes:

It cannot be justly inferr'd... We do not perceive the Thing, therefore there is no such Thing, that is a false Illusion, a deceitful Dream, that wou'd cause us to join together two remote Instants of Time. But nevertheless this is very True... That is, for as much Motion as there was, so much Time seems to have been elapsed; nor, when we mention such a Quantity of Time, do we merely mean any Thing else, than the Performance of so much Motion, to the continued successive Extension of which we imagine the Permanency as Things is co-extended.

Isaac Barrow

The fruits of the earth do not more obviously require labor and cultivation to prepare them for our use and subsistence, than our faculties demand instruction and regulation in order to qualify us to become upright and valuable members of society, useful to others, or happy ourselves.

Isaac Barrow

Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense (Spence, Anecdotes)

Isaac Barrow

Whence it is somewhat strange that any men from so mean and silly a practice should expect commendation, or that any should afford regard thereto; the which it is so far from meriting, that indeed contempt and abhorrence are due to it.

Isaac Barrow

That justice should be administered between men, it is necessary that testimonies of fact be alleged; and that witnesses should apprehend themselves greatly obliged to discover the truth, according to their conscience, in dark and doubtful cases.

Isaac Barrow