“Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, "I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”
2005 Chairman's Letter http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2005.html <br class="br">Letters to Shareholders (1957 - 2012)
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Warren Buffett146
American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist 1930Related quotes
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
“Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!”
Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)
Context: "Sir Isaac Newton, renowned inventor of the milled-edge coin and the catflap!"
"The what?" said Richard.
"The catflap! A device of the utmost cunning, perspicuity and invention. It is a door within a door, you see, a..."
"Yes," said Richard, "there was also the small matter of gravity."
"Gravity," said Dirk with a slightly dismissive shrug, "yes, there was that as well, I suppose. Though that, of course, was merely a discovery. It was there to be discovered." …
"You see?" he said dropping his cigarette butt, "They even keep it on at weekends. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. But the catflap … ah, there is a very different matter. Invention, pure creative invention. It is a door within a door, you see."
Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher
Anecdote (1701) from John Conduitt's manuscript, as quoted by Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) Vol.2 https://books.google.com/books?id=Bp8RAAAAYAAJ
John Moffat book Reinventing Gravity
Source: Reinventing Gravity (2008), Chapter 1, The Greeks To Newton, p. 24
John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744) French-born British natural philosopher and clergyman
Source: Course of Experimental Philosophy, 1745, p. vi: Preface
Context: It is to Sir Isaac Newton's Application of Geometry to Philosophy, that we owe the routing of this Army of Goths and Vandals in the philosophical World; which he has enriched with more and greater Discoveries, than all the Philosophers that went before him: And has laid such Foundations for future Acquisitions, that even after his Death, his Works still promote natural Knowledge. Before Sir Isaac, we had but wild Guesses at the Cause of the Motion of the Comets and Planets round the Sun', but now he has clearly deduced them from the universal Laws of Attraction (the Existence of which he has proved beyond Contradiction) and has shewn, that the seeming Irregularities of the Moon, which Astronomers were unable to express in Numbers, are but the just Consequences of the Actions of the Sun and Earth upon it, according to their different Positions. His Principles clear up all Difficulties of the various Phænomena of the Tides; and the true Figure of the Earth is now plainly shewn to be a flatted Spheroid higher at the Equator than the Poles, notwithstanding many Assertions and Conjectures to the contrary.
George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator
George Horne, written anonymously in his A Fair, Candid, and Impartial Statement of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Hutchinson (1753)
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics