"[Sire,] je n'ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse. [No, Sire,] I had no need of that hypothesis."
De Morgan, Augustus (January 1872). Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan ed. A Budget of Paradoxes, London: Longmans, Green, and Co. As found in http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Quotations/Laplace.html, accessed February 13, 2006. Reputed reply to Emperor Napoleon I, who had asked why he hadn't mentioned God in his discourse on secular variations of the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter ("Mais où est Dieu dans tout cela?"/'But where is God in all this?').
