"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, 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."
Since I initially came across with this memorable verbatim quote which had been commonly attributed to Isaac Newton, but I was not fervently convinced that Newton actually had said it as It does not appear in his entire writings. In fact, I was fascinated by the remarkable grammatical structure and extremely skilled writing techniques.
However, it seems it did not come up in print until a collection by Rev. Joseph Spence , Anecdotes, Observations and Characters, of Books and Men, after his death. Whatever the truth may be concerning a private conversation, it is, of course, lost in time. Nevertheless, it remains an engaging description of Newton, as he regarded himself as only on the shore of a great ocean of truth. That insight certainly remains valid, for he could never have envisioned the atomic structure of matter, quantum theory and discoveries of the universe made by giant telescopes, space probes, and so much more.
There is also an apocryphal story that Newton being inspired by watching an apple fall. Another tells of Diamond, a dog that knocked over a candle on Newton's desk, and burned up a substantial manuscript. Those modern myths still live on. Perhaps the “playing with pebbles” sentiment might be also fabricated, no doubt in reverence to the passing of the genius. But, who knows? Yeah right.
