Mathematician Quotes

Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.

To those who ask what the infinitely small quantity in mathematics is, we answer that it is actually zero. Hence there are not so many mysteries hidden in this concept as they are usually believed to be.

For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise Creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of maximum or minimum does not appear.

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

Property is a nuisance.

My brain is open.

I hope we'll be able to solve these problems before we leave.

God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.

Finally I'm becoming stupider no more.

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

There are three signs of senility. The first sign is that a man forgets his theorems. The second sign is that he forgets to zip up. The third sign is that he forgets to zip down.

Television is something the Russians invented to destroy American education.

Beware of the man who will not engage in idle conversation; he is planning to steal your walking stick or water your stock.

The two operations of our understanding, intuition and deduction, on which alone we have said we must rely in the acquisition of knowledge.

Travelling is almost like talking with those of other centuries.

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.

Everything is self-evident.

Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.

I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.

Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.

A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.