Montesquieu

“ There are philosophers here, who, it is true, have not attained to the perfection to oriental wisdom: they have not been carried up to the throne of light: neither have they heard the unutterable words, nor felt the awful approach of divine frenzy; but left to themselves, and deprived of these sacred miracles, they follow silently the footprints of human reason. ”

“ For, in short, I am persuaded that we have no doctor who would not have been sorely troubled, if he had been told to weigh in a balance all the air which surrounds the earth, or to measure all the water which falls each year upon its surface; and who would not have thought many times before telling how many leagues sound travels in an hour; what time a ray of light occupies in journeying from the sun to us ”

“ But you will soon change your opinion: they do not dazzle us by a pretended profundity: their simplicity has made them long misunderstood; and it is only after much reflection, that people have seen how fruitful they are, and how far they reach. ”

“ They have cleared up chaos, and have explained, by a simple mechanism, the order of divine architecture. The creator of nature gave motion to matter: nothing more was required to produce the prodigious variety of effects in the universe. ”

“ The first is, that every body tends to describe a straight line, unless it meets with some obstacle which diverts its course; and the second, which is but a consequence of the first, is, that every body which moves round a centre, tends to fly from it ”