Christiaan Huygens quotes

Christiaan Huygens was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, renowned for his work in optics and mechanics. His discoveries include the rings of Saturn and the invention of the pendulum clock. He made lasting contributions to the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Here are 16 of his quotes:

There are many degrees of Probable, some nearer Truth than others, in the determining of which lies the chief exercise of our Judgment.

Christiaan Huygens

What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stock'd with so many Herbs, Trees and Animals, and adorn'd with so many Seas and Mountains! And how must our wonder and admiration be encreased when we consider the prodigious distance and multitude of the Stars?

Christiaan Huygens

It's evident God had no design to make a particular Enumeration in the Holy Scriptures, of all the Works of his Creation.

Christiaan Huygens

Here we may mount from this dull Earth, and viewing it from on high, consider whether Nature has laid out all her Cost and Finery upon this small Speck of Dirt.

Christiaan Huygens

We shall be less apt to admire what this World calls Great, shall nobly despise those Trifles the generality of Men set their Affections on, when we know that there are a multitude of such Earths inhabited and adorned as Well as our own.

Christiaan Huygens

I had not thought of this regular decrease of gravity, namely that it is as the inverse square of the distance; this is a new and highly remarkable property of gravity.

Christiaan Huygens

These Gentlemen must be told, that they take too much upon themselves when they pretend to appoint how far and no farther Men shall go in their Searches, and to set bounds to other Mens Industry; as if they knew the Marks that God has placed to Knowledge...

Christiaan Huygens

I do not mind at all that [Newton] is not a Cartesian provided he does not offer us suppositions like that of attraction.

Christiaan Huygens

I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably.

Christiaan Huygens

Since 'tis certain that Earth and Jupiter have their Water and Clouds, there is no reason why the other Planets should be without them. I can't say that they are exactly of the same nature with our Water; but that they should be liquid their use requires, as their beauty does that they be clear. This Water of ours, in Jupiter or Saturn, would be frozen up instantly by reason of the vast distance of the Sun. Every Planet therefore must have its own Waters of such a temper not liable to Frost.

Christiaan Huygens

I esteem his [Newton's] understanding and subtlety highly, but I consider that they have been put to ill use in the greater part of this work, where the author studies things of little use or when he builds on the improbable principle of attraction.

Christiaan Huygens

...the power of this line [the cycloid] to measure time.

Christiaan Huygens

One finds in this subject a kind of demonstration which does not carry with it so high a degree of certainty as that employed in geometry; and which differs distinctly from the method employed by geometers in that they prove their propositions by well-established and incontrovertible principles, while here principles are tested by inferences which are derivable from them. The nature of the subject permits of no other treatment. It is possible, however, in this way to establish a probability which is little short of certainty. This is the case when the consequences of the assumed principles are in perfect accord with the observed phenomena, and especially when these verifications are numerous; but above all when one employs the hypothesis to predict new phenomena and finds his expectations realized.

Christiaan Huygens

A Man that is of Copernicus's Opinion, that this Earth of ours is a Planet, carry'd round and enlighten'd by the Sun, like the rest of the Planets, cannot but sometimes think, that it's not improbable that the rest of the Planets have their Dress and Furniture, and perhaps their Inhabitants too as well as this Earth of ours...

Christiaan Huygens