“In the discovery of hidden things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.”

— William Gilbert (astronomer), book De Magnete

Ostriker, J.P. and Mitton, Simon (2013) Heart of Darkness p.9.
De Magnete (1600), quote about science

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In the discovery of hidden things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure ex…" by William Gilbert (astronomer)?

William Gilbert (astronomer)7

English physician, physicist and natural philosopher 1544–1603

Related quotes

“What power was this—chance, will you say? But chance, what else can it mean
Than the hidden Cause of things by human reason unseen?”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

"Evensong", line 25, in Songs of Two Worlds: Third series (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875), p. 23.

“The only hidden meaning of things
Is that they have no hidden meaning.
It's the strangest thing of all,
Stranger than all poets' dreams
And all philosophers' thoughts,
That things are really what they seem to be
And there's nothing to understand.
Yes, this is what my senses learned on their own:
Things have no meaning: they have existence.
Things are the only hidden meaning of things.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

O único sentido oculto das coisas
É elas não terem sentido oculto nenhum,
É mais estranho do que todas as estranhezas
E do que os sonhos de todos os poetas
E os pensamentos de todos os filósofos,
Que as coisas sejam realmente o que parecem ser
E não haja nada que compreender.
Sim, eis o que os meus sentidos aprenderam sozinhos:—
As coisas não têm significação: têm existência.
As coisas são o único sentido oculto das coisas.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), XXXIX, trans. Richard Zenith.

“There're things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at the worst possible times.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

“Few things are hidden from a quiet child with good eyesight.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“I have learned that In quiet places, reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in My Brother Adlai (1956) by Elizabeth Stevenson Ives and Hildegarde Dolson

“The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations — more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

Part 1: "The Creative Mind", §9 (p. 19)
Science and Human Values (1956, 1965)
Context: The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations — more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or the artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.

“The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all.”
Causa latet, vis est notissima

Ovid Metamorphoses

Variant translation: The cause is hidden; the effect is visible to all.
Book IV, 287
Metamorphoses (Transformations)
Variant: The cause is hidden, but the result is well known.