Mathematician Quotes

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”

“Equality of possessions is no doubt right, but, as men could not make might obey right, they have made right obey might.”

“All our troubles come from not being able to be alone.”

“Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.”

“There are vices which have no hold upon us, but in connection with others; and which, when you cut down the trunk, fall like the branches.”

“We do not rest satisfied with the present.... So imprudent we are that we wander in the times which are not ours and do not thinkof the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us.”

“The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.”

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart." - Blaise Pascal”

“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.”

“The property of power is to protect.”

“There was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present.”

“It is dangerous to explain too clearly to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him. Man must not be allowed to believe that he is equal either to animals or to angels, nor to be unaware of either, but he must know both.”

“It is the contest that delights us, and not the victory.”

“Nothing is so important to man as his own state; nothing is so formidable to him as eternity. And thus it is unnatural that thereshould be men indifferent to the loss of their existence and to the perils of everlasting suffering.”

“We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.”

“A jester, a bad character.”

“Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.”

“The two principles of truth, reason and senses, are not only both not genuine, but are engaged in mutual deception. The senses deceive reason through false appearances, and the senses are disturbed by passions, which produce false impressions.”

“Voluptuousness, like justice, is blind, but that is the only resemblance between them.”

“Reason's last step is to acknowledge that there are infinitely many thingsbeyond it.”

“There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the thing which pleases us. Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song, discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, room, dress, and so on. Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have good taste.”

“Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them.”

“Le silence e ternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces fills me with dread.”

“All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart asequal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring todiscover to you.”

“You see, if the height of the mercury [barometer] column is less on the top of a mountain than at the foot of it (as I have many reasons for believing, although everyone who has so far written about it is of the contrary opinion), it follows that the weight of the air must be the sole cause of the phenomenon, and not that abhorrence of a vacuum, since it is obvious that at the foot of the mountain there is more air to have weight than at the summit, and we cannot possibly say that the air at the foot of the mountain has a greater aversion to empty space than at the top.”