It may be that there is no such thing as an equable motion, whereby time may be accurately measured. All motions may be accelerated or retarded, but the true, or equable, progress of absolute time is liable to no change.
Interpretation
The essence of time cannot be altered; our perception of it may vary.
This quote by Isaac Newton reflects on the nature of time, suggesting that while our experiences and measurements may fluctuate, the fundamental progression of time itself remains constant and untouched. It indicates a profound understanding that human measurement is an imperfect reflection of a more absolute reality, thereby encouraging a deeper contemplation of how we perceive and interpret time in our lives.
In practice
In a lecture on the philosophy of time, this quote could introduce a discussion on how we measure and perceive time.
The best and safest way of philosophising seems to be, first to enquire diligently into the properties of things, and to establish those properties by experiences [experiments] and then to proceed slowly to hypotheses for the explanation of them. For hypotheses should be employed only in explaining the properties of things, but not assumed in determining them; unless so far as they may furnish experiments.
Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.
His epitaph: Who, by vigor of mind almost divine, the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, and the tides of the seas first demonstrated.
And from true lordship it follows that the true God is living, intelligent, and powerful; from the other perfections, that he is supreme, or supremely perfect. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, he endures from eternity to eternity; and he is present from infinity to infinity; he rules all things, and he knows all things that happen or can happen.
My Design in this Book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments: In order to which, I shall premise the following Definitions and Axioms.
It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded.
Truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two.
The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings.
If we just sit and exist, and understand that, I think it will be helpful in a world that seems like a record that's going faster and faster, we're spinning off the edge of the universe.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there? The inner smile provoked in us by the patent nonexistence of both.
Whoever is going to listen to the philosophers needs a considerable practice in listening.
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