quotes by Mathematician Quotes

“There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth.”

“We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.”

“To ridicule philosophy is truly philosophical.[Fr., Se moquer de la philosophie c'est vraiment philosophe.]”

“When we see a natural style, we are astonished and charmed; for we expected to see an author, and we find a person.”

“When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true.”

“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.”

“We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.”

“That queen, of error, whom we call fancy and opinion, is the more deceitful because she does not always deceive. She would be the infallible rule of truth if she were the infallible rule of falsehood; but being only most frequently in error, she gives no evidence of her real quality, for she marks with the same character both that which is true and that which is false.”

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

“In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.”

“Continued eloquence is wearisome.”

“For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those mostremote from it?”

“To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.”

“Discourses on humility are a source of pride in the vain and of humility in the humble.”

“As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and that reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object of poetry.”

“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.”

“Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.”

“Who dispenses reputation? Who makes us respect and revere persons, works, laws, the great? Who but this faculty of imagination? All the riches of the earth are inadequate without its approval.”

“Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.”

“Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.”

“Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just.”

“The authority of reason is far more imperious than that of a master; for he who disobeys the one is unhappy, but he who disobeys the other is a fool.”

“The charm of fame is so great that we like every object to which it is attached, even death.”

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

“It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf.”

“The property of power is to protect.”

“Generally we are occupied either with the miseries which now we feel, or with those which threaten; and even when we see ourselves sufficiently secure from the approach of either, still fretfulness, though unwarranted by either present or expected affliction, fails not to spring up from the deep recesses of the heart, where its roots naturally grow, and to fill the soul with its poison.”

“All this visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature.”

“That dog is mine said those poor children; that place in the sun is mine; such is the beginning and type of usurpation throughout the earth.[Fr., Ce chien est a moi, disaient ces pauvres enfants; c'est la ma place au soleil. Voila le commencement et l'image de l'usurpation de toute la terre.]”

“The stream is always purer at its source.[Fr., Les choses valent toujours mieux dans leur source.]”

“Those whom we call ancient were really new in all things, and properly constituted the infancy of mankind.”

“Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.”

“they do not know that they seek only the chase and not the quarry.”

“Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?”

“Great and small suffer the same mishaps.”

“Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way.”

“The multitude which does not reduce itself to unity is confusion.”

“Man's grandeur is that he knows himself to be miserable.”

“You are in the same manner surrounded with a small circle of persons... full of desire. They demand of you the benefits of desire... You are therefore properly the king of desire. ...equalin this to the greatest kings of the earth... It is desire that constitutes their power; that is, the possession of things that men covet.”

“La chose la plus importante a' toute la vie est le choix du me tier: le hasard en dispose. The most important thing in life is to choose a profession: chance arranges for that.”

“There are two excesses: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. The supreme achievement of reason is to realise that there is a limit to reason. Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it. It is merely feeble if it does not go as far as to realise that.”

“True eloquence makes light of eloquence, true morality makes light of morality; that is to say, the morality of the judgment, which has no rules, makes light of the morality of the intellect.... To make light of philosophy is to be a true philosopher.”

“The heart has arguments with which the logic of mind is not aquainted.”

“[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.”

“Any unity which doesn't have its origin in the multitudes is tyranny.”

“Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.”

“When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.”

“How comes it that a cripple does not offend us, but a fool does? Because a cripple recognizes that we walk straight, whereas a fool declares that it is we who are silly; if it were not so, we should feel pity and not anger.”

“It's not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It's those who write the songs.”

“From whence comes it that a cripple in body does not irritate us, and that a crippled mind enrages us? It is because a cripple sees that we go right, and a distorted mind says that it is we who go astray. But for that we should have more pity and less rage.”