“The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.”

— Isaac Newton , book Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light

Query 30 : Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another, and may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light which enter into their composition?
Opticks (1704)

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Isaac Newton 171

British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern c… 1643–1727

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“As regards very small celestial bodies of a light-minded nature, the law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity.”

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“I hold that the first form of a body is the first corporeal mover. But this is light, which as it multiplies itself and expands without the body of matter moving with it, makes its passage instantaneously through the transparent medium and is not motion but a state of change. But, indeed, when light is expanding itself in different directions it is incorporated with matter, if the body of matter extends with it, and it makes a rarefaction or augmentation of matter; for when light is itself charged with the body of matter, it produces condensation or rarefaction. So when light generates itself in one direction drawing matter with it, it produces local motion; and when light within matter is sent out and what is outside is sent in, it produces qualitative change. From this it is clear that corporeal motion is a multiplicative power of light, and this is a corporeal and natural appetite.”

Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253) English bishop and philosopher

see De Luce Tr. Ludwig Baur (1912) pp. 51-52
De Luce seu de Inchoatione Formarum (c. 1215-1220)

“The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and why?”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), III Six books on Light and Shade
Context: The body which is nearest to the light casts the largest shadow, and why? If an object placed in front of a single light is very close to it you will see that it casts a very large shadow on the opposite wall, and the farther you remove the object from the light the smaller will the image of the shadow become.

“Do not Bodies and Light act mutually upon one another; that is to say, Bodies upon Light in emitting, reflecting, refracting and inflecting it, and Light upon Bodies for heating them, and putting their parts into a vibrating motion wherein heat consists?”

Isaac Newton book Opticks, or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light

Query 5
Opticks (1704)

“A light snow, a snow so faint and small-bodied that it seems nothing more than a manifestation of the cold.”

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“I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one. At the same time my body became light.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

An account of an experience of transcendent awareness, soon after a contest where, unarmed, he defeated a naval officer armed with a bokken (wooden sword) without harming him; as quoted in Aikido (1985) by Kisshomaru Ueshiba 
Context: I felt the universe suddenly quake, and that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one. At the same time my body became light. I was able to understand the whispering of the birds, and was clearly aware of the mind of God, the creator of the universe.
At that moment I was enlightened: the source of Budo is God's love — the spirit of loving protection for all beings … Budo is not the felling of an opponent by force; nor is it a tool to lead the world to destruction with arms. True Budo is to accept the spirit of the universe, keep the peace of the world, correctly produce, protect and cultivate all beings in nature.

“Nothing which consists of corporeal matter is absolutely light, but that is comparatively lighter which is rarer, either by its own nature, or by accidental heat. And it is not to be thought that light bodies are escaping to the surface of the universe while they are carried upwards, or that they are not attracted by the earth. They are attracted, but in a less degree, and so are driven outwards by the heavy bodies; which being done, they stop, and are kept by the earth in their own place.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

As translated and quoted by Bryant, ibid.
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Astronomia nova (1609)

“Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.”

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“The outlines and form of any part of a body in light and shade are indistinct in the shadows and in the high lights; but in the portions between the light and the shadows they are highly conspicuous.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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“Occasionally, light added to itself may give obscure surfaces on a body that has already received light.”
Lumen aliquando per sui communicationem reddit obscuriorem superficiem corporis aliunde, ac prius illustratam.

Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1618–1663) Italian physicist

also translated as "A body actually enlightened may become obscure by adding new light to that which it has already received." in The Penny cyclopaedia (1845), http://books.google.com/books?id=O4uLUvHTKGsC&pg=PA668 p. 668.
First account of an interference effect in Physico-mathesis de lumine, coloribus, et iride, aliisque adnexis libri duo: opus posthumum, published in Bologna (1665), http://books.google.com/books?id=FzYVAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPP28,M1 Proposition XXII.

“The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations.”

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Isaac Newton 171

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