Mathematical Quotes - Page 15

• Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Lying, Science, Math

  Orthodoxy ch. 2 (1908)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• "Can you do Addition?" the White Queen said. "What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?" "I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count." "She can't do Addition," the Red Queen interrupted.

  Lewis Carroll

  Queens, Math, White

  Lewis Carroll (2015). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Tales”, p.188, Race Point Pub

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

  Bertrand Russell

  Honesty, Math, Toil

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.71, Spokesman Books

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mathematics is the cheapest science. Unlike physics or chemistry, it does not require any expensive equipment. All one needs for mathematics is a pencil and paper.

  George Polya

  Science, Doe, Needs

  "Speaking of Science: Notable Quotes on Science, Engineering, and the Environment" by Jon Fripp, Michael Fripp, Deborah Fripp, Newnes (p. 45), 2000.

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• When introduced at the wrong time or place, good logic may be the worst enemy of good teaching.

  George Polya

  Teaching, Math, Science

  6 Copy quote

• In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.

  Alfred Adler

  Friendship, Book, Science

  10 Copy quote

• In [great mathematics] there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.

  G. H. Hardy

  Degrees, Economy, Mathematics

  G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.113, Cambridge University Press

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.

  Paul Dirac

  Math, Power, Tools

  Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1995). “Sammlung”, p.457, Cambridge University Press

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of how pure reason may successfully enlarge its domain without the aid of experience

  Immanuel Kant

  Math, Science, Example

  Immanuel Kant (1881). “Critique of Pure Reason”

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Theorems are fun especially when you are the prover, but then the pleasure fades. What keeps us going are the unsolved problems.

  Carl Pomerance

  Fun, Math, Science

  26 Copy quote

• ...the source of all great mathematics is the special case, the concrete example. It is frequent in mathematics that every instance of a concept of seemingly generality is, in essence, the same as a small and concrete special case.

  Paul Halmos

  Science, Essence, Special

  33 Copy quote

• I was x years old in the year x2.

  Augustus De Morgan

  Education, Math, Years

  13 Copy quote

• Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

  Albert Einstein

  Motivational, Education, Freedom

  Albert Einstein (1970). “Out of my later years”, Greenwood Pub Group

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• The latest authors, like the most ancient, strove to subordinate the phenomena of nature to the laws of mathematics.

  Isaac Newton

  Math, Law, Ancient

  9 Copy quote

• There is nothing mysterious, as some have tried to maintain, about the applicability of mathematics. What we get by abstraction from something can be returned.

  Raymond Louis Wilder

  Math, Mysterious, Abstraction

  6 Copy quote

• It is the merest truism, evident at once to unsophisticated observation, that mathematics is a human invention.

  Percy Williams Bridgman

  Math, Invention, Observation

  9 Copy quote

• There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Lying, Math, Science

  "The World of Mathematics". Book by J. R. Newman, 1956.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences.

  Eric Temple Bell

  Graphic Design, Immortality, Mathematics

  Eric Temple Bell (1938). “The queen of the sciences”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the pure mathematics we contemplate absolute truths which existed in the divine mind before the morning stars sang together, and which will continue to exist there when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from heaven.

  Edward Everett Hale

  Morning, Stars, Math

  "Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science". Book by Eric Temple Bell (p. 21), 1952.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• "I think you're begging the question," said Haydock, "and I can see looming ahead one of those terrible exercises in probability where six men have white hats and six men have black hats and you have to work it out by mathematics how likely it is that the hats will get mixed up and in what proportion. If you start thinking about things like that, you would go round the bend. Let me assure you of that!"

  Agatha Christie

  Math, Exercise, Men

  Agatha Christie (1980). “Five complete Miss Marple novels”, Random House Value Publishing

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I recognize the lion by his paw.

  Jacob Bernoulli

  Education, Math, Lions

  27 Copy quote

• I continued to do arithmetic with my father, passing proudly through fractions to decimals. I eventually arrived at the point where so many cows ate so much grass, and tanks filled with water in so many hours. I found it quite enthralling.

  Agatha Christie

  Education, Father, Math

  Agatha Christie (1991). “Agatha Christie: An Autobiography”, Berkley Publishing Group

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...the science of calculation also is indispensable as far as the extraction of the square and cube roots: Algebra as far as the quadratic equation and the use of logarithms are often of value in ordinary cases: but all beyond these is but a luxury; a delicious luxury indeed; but not be in indulged in by one who is to have a profession to follow for his subsistence.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Math, Squares

  Thomas Jefferson (1984). “Jefferson: Writings”, p.1386, Library of America

  6 Copy quote

  Show source