Back to . . . Archimedes Home Page

This section . . . Introduction Law of the Lever Quotations

The engraving is from Mechanic’s Magazine (cover of bound Volume II, Knight & Lacey, London, 1824) Courtesy of the  Annenberg Rare Book &  Manuscript Library  University of Pennsylvania  Philadelphia, USA

Enlarged images:   Medium Size: 151 kilobytes, jpeg     640 x 427 pixels, 256 grayscales   Large Size: 148 kilobytes, gif     2400 x 1600 pixels, black & white   Large Size: 151 kilobytes, gif     2400 x 1600 pixels, black & white     (with corners restored)

GIVE ME A PLACE TO STAND AND I WILL MOVE THE EARTH

A remark of Archimedes quoted by Pappus of Alexandria
Collection or Synagoge, Book VIII, c. AD 340
Greek text: Pappi Alexandrini Collectionis
Edited by Friedrich Otto Hultsch, Berlin, 1878 (see page 1060)

“Give me a place to stand on, and I can move the earth.”

The Works of Archimedes with the Method of Archimedes, edited by T. L. Heath, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1953, p. xix.

“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth.”

Archimedes, by E.J. Dijksterhuis, (translated from the Dutch by C. Dikshoorn), Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1987, p. 15.

“Give me somewhere to stand and I will move the earth.”

Greek Mathematical Works, by Ivor Thomas, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1941, vol. II, p. 35

“Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth.”

Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, edited by Emily Morison Beck, Fourteenth Edition, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1968, p. 105.

“Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth.”

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, London, 1953, p. 14.

Wall painting in the Stanzino delle Matematiche in the Galleria degli Uffizi (Florence, Italy). Painted by Giulio Parigi (1571-1635) in the years 1599-1600.

Enlarged Views:   640 x 340 pixels, 62 kilobytes   1600 x 851 pixels, 198 kilobytes