What characters think about themself and each other

The following quote is attributed to Isaac Newton:

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.

His epitaph, composed by Alexander Pope, read:

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said "Let Newton be!" and all was light.

Use the above two quotes as inspiration to write a story about a character who makes a claim like Newton's and another character who makes a claim like Pope's about the first character.