Pierre-Simon Laplace

“Were she then to watch me live through it, she might smile condescendingly, as one who watches a marionette dance to the tugs of strings that it knows nothing about”

Causal Determinism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Pierre-Simon Laplace

“The curve described by a simple molecule of air or vapor is regulated in a manner just as certain as the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which comes from our ignorance.”

Laplace, P., 1820, Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilits, Paris: V Courcier; repr. F.W. Truscott and F.L. Emory (trans.), A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, New York: Dover, 1951. Pierre-Simon Laplace

“Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là”

Rouse Ball (1908) Pierre-Simon Laplace

“Lisez Euler, lisez Euler, c’est notre maître à tous.”

Dunham, William (1999). Euler: The Master of Us All. The Mathematical Association of America. xiii. Pierre-Simon Laplace