自然系统的当前状态显然是前一时刻的结果，如果我们设想一个在给定瞬间理解这个宇宙所有实体关系的智慧，它就能陈述所有这些实体在过去或未来的任何时间的各自位置、运动和一般效应。

It is remarkable that a science which began with the consideration of games of chance should have become the most important object of human knowledge.

值得注意的是，一门始于考虑机会游戏的科学竟然成为了人类知识中最重要的对象。

The simplicity of nature is not to be measured by our conceptions of simplicity.

自然的简单性不应以我们对简单性的概念来衡量。

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.

The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.

What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.

The present state of the system of nature is evidently a resultant of what it was in the preceding moment, and if we conceive of an intelligence which at a given instant comprehends all the relations of the entities of this universe, it could state the respective positions, motions, and general effects of all these entities at any time in the past or future.

自然系统的当前状态显然是前一时刻的结果，如果我们设想一个智能体在某一瞬间理解了这个宇宙中所有实体的关系，它就能陈述这些实体在过去或未来的任何时间的各自位置、运动和一般效应。

The universe is a machine governed by mathematical laws.

宇宙是由数学定律支配的机器。

All the effects of nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.

自然界的所有效应只是少数不变定律的数学结果。

The simplicity of nature is not to be measured by that of our conceptions.

自然的简单性不应以我们概念的简单性来衡量。

Chance is a word void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

机会是一个没有意义的词；没有原因，什么也不能存在。

The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability.