Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nothing could be more absurd than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where nothing else is changed.
The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.
To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.
Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry.
Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time.
Pictures were completely eliminated from mathematics; in particular when I was young this happened in a very strong fashion.
In fact, I barely missed being number one in France in both schools. In particular I did very well in mathematical problems.
We must kill them in war, just because they live beyond the river. If they lived on this side, we would be called murderers.
What part of us feels pleasure? Is it our hand, our arm, our flesh, or our blood? It must obviously be something immaterial.
It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know.
The transfinite numbers are in a sense the new irrationalities [ ... they] stand or fall with the finite irrational numbers.
Taking mathematics from the beginning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was much the better half.
Thus God alone is the primary Unity, or original simple substance, from which all monads, created and derived, are produced.
The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.
There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.
[Lockyer]... sometimes forgets he is only the editor and not the author of Nature. [Lockyer was the first editor of Nature.]
I used to measure the Heavens, now I measure the shadows of Earth. The mind belonged to Heaven, the body's shadow lies here.
Whoever sees no other aim in the game than that of giving checkmate to one's opponent will never become a good Chess player.
A significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent.
A programming language is like a natural, human language in that it favors certain methaphors, images, and ways of thinking.
That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.
But the gambling reasoner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the circle, what a load of misery would be saved.
It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.
There should be in eloquence that which is pleasing and that which is real; but that which is pleasing should itself be real.
Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars. I will not forget thy word. Amen.
That which makes us go so far for love is that we never think that we might have need of anything besides that which we love.
Every transfinite consistent multiplicity, that is, every transfinite set, must have a definite aleph as its cardinal number.
Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt.
The basis for poetry and scientific discovery is the ability to comprehend the unlike in the like and the like in the unlike.
There is no significant difference between human activities and those by amoebas and even bacteria, well, on the GRAND SCALE.
To Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God: Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.
Certainly the best times were when I was alone with mathematics, free of ambition and pretense, and indifferent to the world.
The clearer the teacher makes it, the worse it is for you. You must work things out for yourself and make the ideas your own.
We may always depend on it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.
People make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws.' There are no natural laws. There are only temporary habits of nature.
After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
It is good to be tired and wearied by the futile search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.
The last advance of reason is to recognize that it is surpassed by innumerable things; it is feeble if it cannot realize that.
It is your own assent to yourself, and the constant voice of your own reason, and not of others, that should make you believe.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than the fact that there are some who are not sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
The most important advance in the next fifty years will be in the realm of the spiritual - dealing with the spirit of thought.
A formal manipulator in mathematics often experiences the discomforting feeling that his pencil surpasses him in intelligence.
There can be very little of present-day science and technology that is not dependent on complex numbers in one way or another.
[...] to judge from the Internet postings that people have sent me, probably most of what you learned [about me] was nonsense.
Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes.
Death itself is less painful when it comes upon us unawares than the bare contemplation of it, even when danger is far distant.
It is the conduct of God, who disposes all things kindly, to put religion into the mind by reason, and into the heart by grace.
Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.
Console-toi, tu ne me chercherais pas si tu ne m'avais trouve . Comfort yourself.You would not seek me if you had not found me.