Pierre L Maupertuis - Collected Quotes

"Nature always uses the simplest means to accomplish its effects." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Accord between different laws of Nature that seemed incompatible", Mémoires de l'académie royale des sciences, 1744)

"A true philosopher does not engage in vain disputes about the nature of motion; rather, he wishes to know the laws by which it is distributed, conserved or destroyed, knowing that such laws is the basis for all natural philosophy." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"Despite the disorder observed in Nature, one finds enough traces of the wisdom and power of its Author that one cannot fail to recognize Him." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"Everything is so arranged that the blind logic of mathematics executes the will of the most enlightened and free Mind." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"One should not be deceived by philosophical works that pretend to be mathematical, but are merely dubious and murky metaphysics. Just because a philosopher can recite the words lemma, theorem and corollary doesn't mean that his work has the certainty of mathematics. That certainty does not derive from big words, or even from the method used by geometers, but rather from the utter simplicity of the objects considered by mathematics." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"The laws of movement and of rest deduced from this principle being precisely the same as those observed in nature, we can admire the application of it to all phenomena. The movement of animals, the vegetative growth of plants [...] are only its consequences; and the spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much more beautiful, the worthier of its Author, when one knows that a small number of laws, most wisely established, suffice for all movements." (Pierre L M Maupertuis, "Les Loix du mouvement et du repos déduites d'un principe metaphysique", Histoire de l'Académie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, 1746)

"The supreme Being is everywhere; but He is not equally visible everywhere. Let us seek Him in the simplest things, in the most fundamental laws of Nature, in the universal rules by which movement is conserved, distributed or destroyed; and let us not seek Him in phenomena that are merely complex consequences of these laws." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746) 

"When a change occurs in Nature, the quantity of action necessary for that change is as small as possible." (Pierre L Maupertuis, "Les Loix du Mouvement et du Repos, déduites d'un Principe Métaphysique", 1746)

"To endeavor at discovering the connections that subsist in nature, is no way inconsistent with prudence; but it is downright folly to push these researches too far; as it is the lot only of superior Beings to see the dependence of events, from one end to the other, of the chain which supports them." (Pierre Louis Maupertuis, "An Essay Towards a History of the Principal Comets Since 1742", 1769)