Mathematician Quotes

“Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool he believes it, and by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with himself, which it pays him to regulate.”

“The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.”

“Opinion is, as it were, the queen of the world, but force is its tyrant.”

“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.”

“Tout notre raisonnement se re duit a' ce der au sentiment. All our reasoning comes down to surrendering to feeling.”

“Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.”

“Put the world's greatest philosopher on a plank that is wider than need be; if there is a precipe below, although his reason may convince him that he is safe, his imagination will prevail.”

“All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone.”

“We are not satisfied with real life; we want to live some imaginary life in the eyes of other people and to seem different from what we actually are.”

“A little thing comforts us because a little thing afflicts us.”

“Two similar faces, neither of which alone causes laughter, use laughter when they are together, by their resemblance.”

“All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms.”

“Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.”

“That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.”

“It is dangerous to tell the people that the laws are unjust; for they obey them only because they think them just. Therefore it isnecessary to tell them at the same time that they must obey them because they are laws, just as they must obey superiors, not because they are just, but because they are superiors. In this way all sedition is prevented.”

“I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.”

“We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end.”

“And is it not obvious that, just as it is a crime to disturb the peace when truth reigns, it is also a crime to remain at peace when the truth is being destroyed?”

“Imagination is the deceptive part in man, the mistress of error and falsehood.”

“Excuse me, pray." Without that excuse I would not have known there was anything amiss.”

“The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.”

“The art of revolutionizing and overturning states is to undermine established customs, by going back to their origin, in order to mark their want of justice.”

“How hollow is the heart of man, and how full of excrement!”

“Meanings receive their dignity from words instead of giving it to them.”

“If a soldier or labourer complain of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing.”