OUR ORDINATION: Sir Isaac Newton, 1642 β 1747 About the times of the End, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that during critical times, there will be individuals who focus on interpreting prophecies literally despite facing opposition.
Isaac Newton's quote reflects his belief that in times of significant change or turmoil, specific individuals will emerge with a keen interest in prophecies, emphasizing their literal interpretation. This statement underscores the idea that truth-seekers often face challenges and are met with resistance, yet their commitment to understanding deeper meanings in troubled times remains steadfast.
In practice
In a speech about integrity in journalism, one might use this quote to highlight the challenges of reporting truth amidst sensationalism.
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.
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that registered earthquakes ten thousand miles away.
People don't ever have to starve to death; there are solutions. We have failed if we can't eradicate hunger in Africa and Ethiopia.
There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.
It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence.
The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent - that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement.
So we draw lines around our property, our counties, our cities, our states, our countries. And, boy, do we act as if those lines are important. I mean, we go to war. We will kill and die to protect those boundaries. Nature couldn't give two hoots about our national boundaries.
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