Mathematician Quotes - Page 4

• It is not certain that everything is uncertain.

  Blaise Pascal

  Math, Intelligence, Uncertain

  Blaise Pascal (1850). “The Thoughts on religion, and evidences of Christianity, of Pascal; tr., with intr., notes, etc., by G. Pearce”, p.99

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• If you're going to be passionate about something, be passionate about learning. If you're going to fight something, fight for those in need. If you're going to question something, question authority. If you're going to lose something, lose your inhibitions. If you're going to gain something, gain respect and confidence. And if you're going to hate something, hate the false idea that you are not capable of your dreams.

  Daniel Goldston

  Inspirational, Confidence, Dream

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• Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society... Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect, antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual's internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Depression, Depressing, Mean

  "The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future" by Theodore J. Kaczynski, ("Control of Human Behavior", item 145), 1995.

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• Statistics is the grammar of science.

  Karl Pearson

  Science, Data, Statistics

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• We accepted education as the means to rise above the limitations that a prejudiced society endeavored to place upon us.

  Evelyn Boyd Granville

  Inspiring, Education, Mean

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• Bottomless wonders spring from simple rules, which are repeated without end.

  Benoit Mandelbrot

  Spring, Simple, Miracle

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• To divide a cube into two other cubes, a fourth power, or in general any power whatever into two powers of the same denomination above the second is impossible, and I have assuredly found an admirable proof of this, but the margin is too narrow to contain it.

  Pierre de Fermat

  Math, Science, Power

  Scribbled note in the margins of his copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica. He did not live to provide the promised proof, and the conjecture became famous as Fermat's Last Theorem. In 1993 Andrew Wiles, a British mathematician, claimed to have discovered the proof.

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• Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers.

  Shakuntala Devi

  Math, Science, Numbers

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• The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.

  John Tukey

  Data, Drawing, Unexpected

  John Wilder Tukey (1977). “Exploratory Data Analysis”, Pearson College Division

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• It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.

  Roger Penrose

  Reading, Thinking, Understanding

  Roger Penrose (2016). “The Road To Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe”, p.20, Random House

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• By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively- a never-ending process

  Johan Galtung

  Inspirational, Sympathy, Peace

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• The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.

  Seymour Papert

  Education, Teacher, School

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• Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.

  Norbert Wiener

  Technology, Slave Labor, Machines

  Norbert Wiener (1988). “The Human Use Of Human Beings: Cybernetics And Society”, p.112, Hachette UK

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• I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.

  Max Born

  Philosophy, Believe, Philosophical

  "Experiment and Theory in Physics" by Max Born, (p. 44), 1943.

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• If you want to be a reference librarian, you must learn to overcome not only your shyness but also the shyness of others!

  S. R. Ranganathan

  Inspirational, Learning, Library

  S. R. Ranganathan (2006). “The Five Laws of Library Science”, Ess Ess Publications

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• Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation

  Max Euwe

  Thinking, Tactics, Playing Chess

  "Sales - What A Concept!: A Guidebook for Sales Process Performance Improvement" by Henry C. (Sandy) Waters III, p. 11, 2011.

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• A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Smart, Stupid

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• The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.

  Paul Halmos

  Learning, Math, Way

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• Always try the problem that matters most to you.

  Andrew Wiles

  Motivational, Issues, Important

  "Andrew Wiles on Solving Fermat". "NOVA" Interview, www.pbs.org. November 1, 2000.

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• A false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held.

  Georg Cantor

  Science, Power, Accepted

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• Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics.

  Gabriel Marcel

  Music, Math, Scent

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• If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.

  Frank Wilczek

  Inspirational, Work, Mistake

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• Prison is a severe and terrible punishment; but for me, thanks to Arthur Balfour, this was not so. I was much cheered on my arrival by the warder at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied 'agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.

  Bertrand Russell

  God, Punishment, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.257, Psychology Press

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• The man who has learned that three plus one are four doesn't have to go through a proof of that assertion with coins, or dice, or chess pieces, or pencils. He knows it, and that's that. He cannot conceive a different sum. There are mathematicians who say that three plus one is a tautology for four, a different way of saying "four" ... If three plus one can be two, or fourteen, then reason is madness.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Men, Two, Chess Pieces

  Jorge Luis Borges (2001). “The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory”, Penguin Modern Classics

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• The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.

  William James

  Passion, Math, Unions

  William James (1987). “Essays, Comments, and Reviews”, p.356, Harvard University Press

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