Quotes about gravity

A collection of quotes on the topic of gravity, use, law, in-laws.

Quotes about gravity

Carl von Clausewitz photo
Alexis Karpouzos photo
George Orwell photo
Archimedes photo

“The centre of gravity of any cone is [the point which divides its axis so that] the portion [adjacent to the vertex is] triple”

of the portion adjacent to the base
Proposition presumed from previous work.
The Method of Mechanical Theorems

Isaac Newton photo
Isaac Newton photo
Douglas Adams photo
Isaac Newton photo

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics
Alexis Carrel photo
Michio Kaku photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.”

Source: Small Gods

Stephen Hawking photo
Isaac Newton photo

“One [method] is by a Watch to keep time exactly. But, by reason of the motion of the Ship, the Variation of Heat and Cold, Wet and Dry, and the Difference of Gravity in different Latitudes, such a watch hath not yet been made.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Written in remarks to the 1714 Longitude committee; quoted in Longitude (1995) by Dava Sobel, p. 52 (i998 edition) ISBN 1-85702-571-7)
Board of Longitude

Stephen Hawking photo
Carl Sagan photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Karl Marx photo

“The law of gravity thus asserts itself when a house falls about our ears.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 86.
(Buch I) (1867)

Alan Guth photo
Archimedes photo

“The centre of gravity of a parallelogram is the point of intersection of its diagonals.”

Book 1, Proposition 10.
On the Equilibrium of Planes

Francois Villon photo
Isaac Newton photo
Stephen Hawking photo
Archimedes photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Archimedes photo
Archimedes photo
Isaac Newton photo
Lee Smolin photo

“Combine general relativity and quantum theory into a single theory that can claim to be the complete theory of nature. This is called the problem of quantum gravity.”

Lee Smolin (1955) American cosmologist

The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (2007)

Isaac Newton photo

“In the beginning of the year 1665 I found the method of approximating Series and the Rule for reducing any dignity of any Binomial into such a series. The same year in May I found the method of tangents of Gregory and Slusius, and in November had the direct method of Fluxions, and the next year in January had the Theory of Colours, and in May following I had entrance into the inverse method of Fluxions. And the same year I began to think of gravity extending to the orb of the Moon, and having found out how to estimate the force with which [a] globe revolving within a sphere presses the surface of the sphere, from Kepler's Rule of the periodical times of the Planets being in a sesquialterate proportion of their distances from the centers of their orbs I deduced that the forces which keep the Planets in their Orbs must [be] reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve: and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them answer pretty nearly. All this was in the two plague years of 1665 and 1666, for in those days I was in the prime of my age for invention, and minded Mathematicks and Philosophy more than at any time since. What Mr Hugens has published since about centrifugal forces I suppose he had before me. At length in the winter between the years 1676 and 1677 I found the Proposition that by a centrifugal force reciprocally as the square of the distance a Planet must revolve in an Ellipsis about the center of the force placed in the lower umbilicus of the Ellipsis and with a radius drawn to that center describe areas proportional to the times. And in the winter between the years 1683 and 1684 this Proposition with the Demonstration was entered in the Register book of the R. Society. And this is the first instance upon record of any Proposition in the higher Geometry found out by the method in dispute. In the year 1689 Mr Leibnitz, endeavouring to rival me, published a Demonstration of the same Proposition upon another supposition, but his Demonstration proved erroneous for want of skill in the method.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

(ca. 1716) A Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collection of Books and Papers Written by Or Belonging to Sir Isaac Newton https://books.google.com/books?id=3wcjAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR18 (1888) Preface
Also partially quoted in Sir Sidney Lee (ed.), The Dictionary of National Biography Vol.40 http://books.google.com/books?id=NycJAAAAIAAJ (1894)

Archimedes photo
Isaac Newton photo
Thomas Mann photo
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada photo
Walter Model photo
Isaac Newton photo

“I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses;”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676)
Context: I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis, and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.

Henri Barbusse photo

“Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face
Context: To live is to be happy to live. The usefulness of life — ah! its expansion has not the mystic shapes we vainly dreamed of when we were paralyzed by youth. Rather has it a shape of anxiety, of shuddering, of pain and glory. Our heart is not made for the abstract formula of happiness, since the truth of things is not made for it either. It beats for emotion and not for peace. Such is the gravity of the truth.

Simon Armitage photo
Hugh Laurie photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Scott Westerfeld photo
Scott Lynch photo
Oprah Winfrey photo
Stephen King photo
China Miéville photo
David Levithan photo
Elizabeth Knox photo
Elaine May photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Mary Karr photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Confucius photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Libba Bray photo
David Levithan photo

“They defy gravity, as good books should.”

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Charles Nodier photo

“Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods.”

Charles Nodier (1780–1844) French author

Source: Smarra & Trilby

“Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and defies the law of gravity at the same time is really good.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)
Source: Wall and Piece

Donna Tartt photo
Simone Weil photo

“Two forces rule the universe: light and gravity.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
Mohsin Hamid photo
David Levithan photo
Gabrielle Zevin photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Charlie Brooker photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true point at which it can remain at rest.”

Vol. 2 "Further Psychological Observations" as translated in Essays and Aphorisms (1970), as translated by R. J. Hollingdale
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

John Moffat photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Gravity’s books have got to balance.”

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 17, “Disaster” (p. 177)

Stephenie Meyer photo
François Englert photo
Simone Weil photo
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan photo
Stephenie Meyer photo
Charles Leadbeater photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
John Mayer photo
Giorgio de Chirico photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo

“Evidently Proclus does not advocate here simply a superstition, but science; for notwithstanding that it is occult, and unknown to our scholars, who deny its possibilities, magic is still a science. It is firmly and solely based on the mysterious affinities existing between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms, and the invisible powers of the universe. That which science calls gravitation, the ancients and the mediaeval hermetists called magnetism, attraction, affinity. It is the universal law, which is understood by Plato and explained in Timaeus as the attraction of lesser bodies to larger ones, and of similar bodies to similar, the latter exhibiting a magnetic power rather than following the law of gravitation. The anti-Aristotelean formula that gravity causes all bodies to descend with equal rapidity, without reference to their weight, the difference being caused by some other unknown agency, would seem to point a great deal more forcibly to magnetism than to gravitation, the former attracting rather in virtue of the substance than of the weight. A thorough familiarity with the occult faculties of everything existing in nature, visible as well as invisible; their mutual relations, attractions, and repulsions; the cause of these, traced to the spiritual principle which pervades and animates all things; the ability to furnish the best conditions for this principle to manifest itself, in other words a profound and exhaustive knowledge of natural law — this was and is the basis of magic.”

Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter VII

John Oliver photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“As our faces and bodies drew nearer, gravity was not helping us at all. It took minor struggle to come together, and we had to hold on in an effort to keep our lips aligned.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Source: Zero Gravity interview (2006), p. 29

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Alan Guth photo
Tony Blair photo
Ray Comfort photo

“Interestingly, Islam acknowledges the reality of sin and hell, and the justice of God, but the hope it offers is that sinners can escape God’s justice if they do religious works. God will see these, and because of them, hopefully he will show mercy—but they won’t know for sure. Each person’s works will be weighed on the Day of Judgment and it will then be decided who is saved and who is not—based on whether they followed Islam, were sincere in repentance, and performed enough righteous deeds to outweigh their bad ones. So Islam believes you can earn God’s mercy by your own efforts. That’s like jumping out of the plane and believing that flapping your arms is going to counter the law of gravity and save you from a 10,000-foot drop. And there’s something else to consider. The Law of God shows us that the best of us is nothing but a wicked criminal, standing guilty and condemned before the throne of a perfect and holy Judge. When that is understood, then our “righteous deeds” are actually seen as an attempt to bribe the Judge of the Universe. The Bible says that because of our guilt, anything we offer God for our justification (our acquittal from His courtroom) is an abomination to Him, and only adds to our crimes. Islam, like the other religions, doesn’t solve your problem of having sinned against God and the reality of hell.”

Ray Comfort (1949) New Zealand-born Christian minister and evangelist

The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition (2009)

Bob Dylan photo

“It was gravity which pulled us in and destiny which broke us apart”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Idiot Wind

Kuba Wojewódzki photo

“The only thing that keeps me here is gravity.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Jedyne co mnie tu trzyma, to grawitacja.
To Idol contestants

Vanna Bonta photo
Alain de Botton photo
Rosa Luxemburg photo
George W. Bush photo
Simone Weil photo
Jayant Narlikar photo
John Horgan (journalist) photo
David Gross photo