I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Newton likens his understanding to a child playing on the shore, finding small treasures while the vast ocean of truth remains unexplored.
- In plain terms
- I grasp only tiny bits while the whole truth is still far away.
- What can you take from it?
- Recognize the limits of our knowledge.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How does humility aid scientific progress?
- What drives us to explore the unknown?
Another view
Even small discoveries can be profound.
More from Isaac Newton
I have studied these things - you have not.
Permalink to quote #6 Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!
Permalink to quote #8 The folly of Interpreters has been, to foretell times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not onl…
Permalink to quote #5
Related quotes
The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysi…
David HumeDavid Hume quote #21 I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.
Louis PasteurLouis Pasteur quote #1 Without books, God is silent, justice dormant, natural science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in darkness.
Thomas V. BartholinThomas V. Bartholin quote #1