Bertrand Russell Quotes About Mathematics

• Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Western Philosophy, Mathematics

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

• Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

  Bertrand Russell

  Humility, Math, Science

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.171, Routledge

• The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.

  Bertrand Russell

  Logic, Architecture, Mathematics

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.95, Bertrand Russell

• Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fake People, Math, Talking

  "Mathematics and Metaphysicians" (1901)

• If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christmas, Work, Holiday

  Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 5

• Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Men, Wife

  Impact of Science on Society ch. 1 (1952)

• What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement.

  Bertrand Russell

  Encouragement, Learning, Science

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.86, Psychology Press

• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the georgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Truth, Science

  Philosophical Essays (1910) no. 4

• I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Return

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914”, Allen Lane

• Mathematics is only the art of saying the same thing in different words.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Different, Mathematics

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.727, Routledge

• Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Mean, Math

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.626, Psychology Press

• It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Destiny, Numbers

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.162, Routledge

• A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Giving

• Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Law, Jeans

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.77, Routledge

• The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discovery, Mathematical Logic, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.5, Routledge

• Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Littles, Statistics

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.51, 谷月社

• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Math, Perfection

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

• ... mathematical knowledge ... is, in fact, merely verbal knowledge. "3" means "2+1", and "4" means "3+1". Hence it follows (though the proof is long) that "4" means the same as "2+2". Thus mathematical knowledge ceases to be mysterious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Numbers, Long

• ... the word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate sympathetic contemplation" was intellectual, and issued in mathematical knowledge ... To those who have reluctantly learnt a little mathematics in school this may seem strange; but to those who have experienced the intoxicating delight of sudden understanding that mathematics gives, from time to time, to those who love it, the Pythagorean view will seem completely natural.

  Bertrand Russell

  School, Views, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

• It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Plato, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.95, Routledge

• I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist - all that is commonly called Science - to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Knowledge, World

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.149, Routledge

• One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Triumph, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.46, 谷月社

• At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Brother, First Love

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

• Analytic It is clear that the definition of "logic" or "mathematics" must be sought by trying to give a new definition of the old notion of "analytic" propositions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Giving, Trying, Definitions

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.155, Routledge

• Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of the fact that this study is, as we say, "purely formal".

  Bertrand Russell

  Facts, Logic, Study

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