MATH QUOTES
quotations about mathematics
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe--because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March 1912
There are very few things which we know, which are not capable of being reduced to a Mathematical Reasoning; and when they cannot it's a sign our knowledge of them is very small and confused; and when a Mathematical Reasoning can be had it's as great a folly to make use of any other, as to grope for a thing in the dark, when you have a Candle standing by you.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
"Of the Hazards of Game", A Supplement to the Miscellaneous Works of the Late Dr. Arbuthnot
Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
attributed, Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist
Math is easy, given the following conditions: 1. Topics are separated into essential and non-essential categories 2. Instruction is clear 3. Practice is misconception-free 4. Math teachers are reasonable. Of all these conditions, the last is least likely to happen.
NATHANIEL MAX ROCK
Math Is Easy, So Easy
A new study found that students who are taught abstinence end up with better math scores. Of course, if you join the math team, the abstinence takes care of itself.
JIMMY FALLON
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, February 10, 2012
Those who assert that the mathematical sciences say nothing of the beautiful or the good are in error. For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention them, but prove attributes which are their results or definitions, it is not true that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree.
ARISTOTLE
Metaphysics
Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
G. H. HARDY
A Mathematician's Apology
Solving a problem for which you know there's an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone else has laid. In mathematics, the truth is somewhere out there in a place no one knows, beyond all the beaten paths. And it's not always at the top of the mountain. It might be in a crack on the smoothest cliff or somewhere deep in the valley.
YOKO OGAWA
The Housekeeper and the Professor
We find sects and parties in most branches of science; and disputes which are carried on from age to age, without being brought to an issue. Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from mathematics and natural philosophy than from other sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the beginning; mathematicians having had the wisdom to define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.
THOMAS REID
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man
Mathematics possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mysticism and Logic
The really inspiring reflection suggested by the history of mathematics is the unity of thought and interest among men of so many epochs, so many nations, and so many races.
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD
An Introduction to Mathematics
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Studies show American students are becoming less proficient in math. Experts say we should have seen this coming, but nobody could put 2 and 2 together.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show, February 1, 2012
Mathemathics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.
CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS
attributed, The Princeton Companion to Mathematics
He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Mathematics he moderately studieth to his great contentment, using it as a ballast for his soul.
THOMAS FULLER
The Holy State and the Profane State
Although I was first drawn to math and science by the certainty they promised, today I find the unanswered questions and the unexpected connections at least as attractive.
LISA RANDALL
Warped Passages
Wherever there is number, there is beauty.
PROCLUS
Commentary on Euclid
I'm sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think the reason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a mistake, that was all there was to it.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical mathematics of the city of heaven.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
Cyrus' Garden