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Quotes by Mathematician
"Strength of mind rests in sobriety; for this keeps your reason unclouded by passion."
"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres."
"There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly."
"It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few."
"The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil."
"Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?"
"No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does."
"One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics."
"Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."
"The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law."
"Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts."
"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful."
"It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient."
"To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection."
"What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?"
"The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so."
"A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations."
Mind,
"A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature."
"A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter."
"A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance."
"It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details."
"It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover."
"Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority."
"Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence."
"It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all."
"In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind."
"If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment."
"If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by the laws."
"If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing."
"If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living."
"Ideas rose in clouds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination."
"Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics."
"Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything."
"Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover."
"Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects."
"Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things."
"The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe."
"Statistics is the grammar of science."
"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."
"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances."
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"To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me."
"To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science."
"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction."
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