Sir Isaac Newton.

1023. I don't know what I may seem to the world, but, as to
myself, I seem to have been only as a boy playing on the sea-
shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean
of truth lay all undiscovered before me. NEWTON, I.

Quoted by Rev. J. Spence: Anecdotes, Observa-
tions, and Characters of Books and Men (Lon-




don, 1858), p. 40.

source: Memorabilia mathematica; or, The philomath's quotation-book - Moritz, Robert Édouard, 1868-1940