Quotessence
Home / Topics / Mathematics Quotes

Mathematics Quotes

Browse 2551 quotes about Mathematics.

Related topics

MathScienceMathematicianIfsWorldEducationMenNumbersThinkingKnowsProblemLogicMayPhysicsLanguageWayShouldArtHumansStatisticsTheoryStudyMathematics And ScienceMindPeopleMath And ScienceDoeIdeasTwoFirstsSubjectsPureMathematics By MathematiciansGeometryFactsReasonProofGivingWellsUniverseLawTheoremsUseUnderstandingReasoningMath EducationSeemsDiscoveryNeedsRealNumbers And MathBelievePhilosophyCalculusMeanTeachingResultsHas BeensKindKnowledgeLittlesSchoolComputerNaturalSaidYearsFormMadeCertainPrinciplesRealityStudentsWritingDifferentFieldsImportantMathematical LogicWholeBookConceptsOrderSimpleTryingFunny MathematicsRelationArithmeticBeautifulBranchesLongModernUsedWould BeAnswersEquationsExampleFeelsHardImaginationIntellectualMightmore

Mathematics Quotes

“I never could do anything with figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in that, as soon as I reach nine times seven- [He lapsed into deep thought, trying to figure nine times seven. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer to him.] I've got it now. It's eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can't manage a statistic.”

KnowsTryingWellsLittlesI CanScienceAnswersEffortStudyFourMinutesTalentFiguresMathematicsSevenNineManageAccomplishmentAccomplishedGet AwayStatisticsUncertainDeep ThoughtEightyHesitationRuggedMultiplication
Author:Mark Twain
Create image

“In his wretched life of less than twenty-seven years Abel accomplished so much of the highest order that one of the leading mathematicians of the Nineteenth Century could say without exaggeration, "Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for five hundred years." Asked how he had done all this in the six or seven years of his working life, Abel replied, "By studying the masters, not the pupils."”

YearsDoneEnoughOrderLeftStudyFiveCenturyMastersSixHighestHundredTwentiesMathematicsSevenBusyAccomplishedMathematicianWretchedSeven YearsPupilsExaggerationNineteenth CenturyWorking LifeAbel
Book:The queen of the sciences
Create image

“The Mathematics are Friends to Religion, inasmuch as they charm the Passions, restrain the Impetuosity of the Imagination, and purge the Mind from Error and Prejudice. Vice is Error, Confusion, and false Reasoning; and all Truth is more or less opposite to it. Besides, Mathematical Studies may serve for a pleasant Entertainment for those Hours which young Men are apt to throw away upon their Vices; the Delightfulness of them being such as to make Solitude not only easy, but desirable.”

MenMindMayYoungScienceReligionPassionEasyHoursImaginationStudyTruth IsSolitudeOppositesPrejudiceMathematicsErrorsVicesEntertainmentConfusionMathematicalYoung ManPleasantReasoningCharmDesirable
Book:An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning: In a Letter from a Gentleman in the City, to His Friend at Oxford
Create image

“The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history.”

MindArtScienceHistoryStudyProveMathematicsSatisfactionTreatedMathematicalRealmsTreatmentQuantityPrecision
Book:Life and Letters of H. Taine: 1870-1892
Create image

“The usefulness of mathematics in furthering the sciences is commonly acknowledged: but outside the ranks of the experts there is little inquiry into its nature and purpose as a deliberate human activity. Doubtless this is due to the inevitable drawback that mathematical study is saturated with technicalities from beginning to end.”

HumansLittlesEndsSciencePurposeStudyActivityMathematicsDuesMathematicalInevitableExpertsInquiryDeliberateUsefulnessHuman ActivitySaturatedDrawbacksTechnicalities
Author:Herbert Turnbull
Create image

“There have been many authorities who have asserted that the basis of science lies in counting or measuring, i.e. in the use of mathematics. Neither counting nor measuring can however be the most fundamental processes in our study of the material universe-before you can do either to any purpose you must first select what you propose to count or measure, which presupposes a classification.”

FirstsHas BeensUseLyingPurposeUniverseProcessCan DoStudyMaterialsAuthorityBasesMathematicsFundamentalsCountingProposeSelectMeasurementMeasuringClassification
Book:Classification and Biology
Create image

“The study of infinity is much more than a dry academic game. The intellectual pursuit of the absolute infinity is, as Georg Cantor realized, a form of the soul's quest for God. Whether or not the goal is ever reached, an awareness of the process brings enlightenment.”

SoulGodFormGamesProcessGoalEducationStudyAwarenessIntellectualEnlightenmentAbsolutesMathematicsMathPursuitDryInfinityAcademicQuests
Book:Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite
Create image

“The main duty of the historian of mathematics, as well as his fondest privilege, is to explain the humanity of mathematics, to illustrate its greatness, beauty and dignity, and to describe how the incessant efforts and accumulated genius of many generations have built up that magnificent monument, the object of our most legitimate pride as men, and of our wonder, humility and thankfulness, as individuals. The study of the history of mathematics will not make better mathematicians but gentler ones, it will enrich their minds, mellow their hearts, and bring out their finer qualities.”

MenMindWellsHeartHumanityIndividualEffortQualityWonderStudyGenerationsObjectsGreatnessHumilityDutyPrideGeniusBuiltDignityMathematicsHistoricalPrivilegeMathematicalHistorianMagnificentMathematicianThankfulnessMonumentMellowIncessantMathematical Beauty
Book:The study of the history of mathematics and the study of the history of science
Create image

“I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming . . . and a little mad.”

LittlesIdeasPlayWould BeSuccessStudyToo MuchCuttingEssentialsMathematicsMadHistoricalProfoundMathMathematicalCharmingConstructsSimileOpheliaOmitting
Book:Science and the Modern World
Create image

“What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. This is a quality which cannot be defined, any more than beauty in art can be defined, but which people who study mathematics usually have no difficulty in appreciating.”

PeopleArtQualityPrinciplesStudyTheoryAppreciateDifficultyMathematicsSimplicityDefinedMathematicalSpiteAcceptablePhysicistRelativityTheories Of RelativityMathematical Beauty
Book:Sammlung
Create image

“I believe that numbers and functions of Analysis are not the arbitrary result of our minds; I think that they exist outside of us, with the same character of necessity as the things of objective reality, and we meet them or discover them, and study them, as do the physicists, the chemists and the zoologists.”

ThinkingMindBelieveCharacterRealityI BelieveResultsNumbersStudyFunctionMathematicsObjectivesMathematicalAnalysisPhysicistArbitraryChemistObjective RealityZoologistMathematical Analysis
Author:Charles Hermite
Create image

“One cannot inquire into the foundations and nature of mathematics without delving into the question of the operations by which the mathematical activity of the mind is conducted. If one failed to take that into account, then one would be left studying only the language in which mathematics is represented rather than the essence of mathematics.”

IfsMindWould BeLeftLanguageStudyActivityEssenceAccountsMathematicsFoundationMathematicalOperationsDelving
Author:L. E. J. Brouwer
Create image

“I know, indeed, and can conceive of no pursuit so antagonistic to the cultivation of the oratorical faculty ... as the study of Mathematics. An eloquent mathematician must, from the nature of things, ever remain as rare a phenomenon as a talking fish, and it is certain that the more anyone gives himself up to the study of oratorical effect the less will he find himself in a fit state to mathematicize.”

KnowsGivingStatesCertainNatureTalkingStudyEffectsFitMathematicsFishesMathPursuitMathematicalFacultyPhenomenonMathematicianEloquentCultivation
Book:The Collected Mathematical Papers of James Joseph Sylvester
Create image

“There is no study in the world which brings into more harmonious action all the faculties of the mind than [mathematics], ... or, like this, seems to raise them, by successive steps of initiation, to higher and higher states of conscious intellectual being.”

WorldMindStatesSeemsActionStepsStudyHigherIntellectualConsciousMathematicsRaisesMathMathematicalFacultyHarmoniousInitiation
Book:Address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association, Exeter, August 19th, 1869
Create image

“Perhaps the most surprising thing about mathematics is that it is so surprising. The rules which we make up at the beginning seem ordinary and inevitable, but it is impossible to foresee their consequences. These have only been found out by long study, extending over many centuries. Much of our knowledge is due to a comparatively few great mathematicians such as Newton, Euler, Gauss, or Riemann; few careers can have been more satisfying than theirs. They have contributed something to human thought even more lasting than great literature, since it is independent of language.”

HumansLongHas BeensSeemsFoundLiteratureLanguageCareersStudyImpossibleCenturyOrdinaryConsequenceMathematicsIndependentDuesMathematicalInevitableLastingSatisfyingSurprisingMathematicianNewtonExtendingHuman ThoughtGreat LiteratureEulerSurprising ThingsRiemann
Author:Edward Charles Titchmarsh
Create image

“How then shall mathematical concepts be judged? They shall not be judged. Mathematics is the supreme arbiter. From its decisions there is no appeal. We cannot change the rules of the game, we cannot ascertain whether the game is fair. We can only study the player at his game; not, however, with the detached attitude of a bystander, for we are watching our own minds at play.”

MindPlayGamesDecisionEducationAttitudeStudyPlayerConceptsFairsMathematicsMathSupremeMathematicalAppealsJudgedDetachedBystandersArbiterRules Of The Game
Author:David van Dantzig
Create image

“I soon found an opportunity to be introduced to a famous professor Johann Bernoulli. ... True, he was very busy and so refused flatly to give me private lessons; but he gave me much more valuable advice to start reading more difficult mathematical books on my own and to study them as diligently as I could; if I came across some obstacle or difficulty, I was given permission to visit him freely every Sunday afternoon and he kindly explained to me everything I could not understand.”

IfsGivingBookReadingFoundOpportunityGivenDifficultMy OwnEducationStudyAdviceLessonsGive MeDifficultyMathematicsBusyObstaclesValuableMathMathematicalSundayProfessorsAfternoonPermissionSunday AfternoonsEulerReading More
Author:Leonhard Euler
Create image

“I told myself, "Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means." So I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what "demonstrate" means, and went back to my law studies.”

IfsGivingMeanBookHomeLawFoundFatherHouseLeftEducationSituationStudySixSightMathematicsMathLawyerPropositionsEuclid
Author:Abraham Lincoln
Create image

“Since you are now studying geometry and trigonometry, I will give you a problem. A ship sails the ocean. It left Boston with a cargo of wool. It grosses 200 tons. It is bound for Le Havre. The mainmast is broken, the cabin boy is on deck, there are 12 passengers aboard, the wind is blowing East-North-East, the clock points to a quarter past three in the afternoon. It is the month of May. How old is the captain?”

GivingMayProblemPastThreeLeftBoysStudyWindBrokenMonthsOceanMathematicsBoundsMathEastShipsMathematicalClockAfternoonQuartersSailCaptainsBostonGeometryPassengersDeckCabinsWoolCargoMathematical ProblemsTrigonometryNorth East
Author:Gustave Flaubert
Create image

“Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again.”

IfsMayLittlesDoeHas BeensMadeHardSeemsScienceFoundLostNaturalPartyEffortStepsStudyFourCostResearchAppreciateDifficultyOriginalsMathematicsObviousMathematicalRealisingSurprisingInitialsTouristsMountaineeringAscentMatterhorn
Author:Louis J. Mordell
Create image

“In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.”

HumansIdeasHardFactsFeelingsRememberStudyIssuesCostFunctionMathematicsMathClarityMathematicalReasoningSuperstitionsSheerSentimentalFloatsMistPremisesStrawsInsistenceDeductionsHuman IntelligencePerplexity
Book:Adventures of Ideas
Create image