Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.
When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.
Use the word 'cybernetics', Norbert, because nobody knows what it means. This will always put you at an advantage in arguments.
The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic.
Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science issue.
Perspective is an Art Mathematical which demonstrates the manner and properties of all radiations direct, broken and reflected.
It is self-evident that any and all paths must be open to a researcher during the actual course of his [or her] investigations.
To isolate mathematics from the practical demands of the sciences is to invite the sterility of a cow shut away from the bulls.
Some of the finest moral intuitions come to quite humble people. The visiting of lofty ideas doesn't depend on formal schooling.
Men are so completely fools by necessity that he is but a fool in a higher strain of folly who does not confess his foolishness.
Being unable to cure death, wretchedness, and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.
We must know where to doubt, where to feel certain, where to submit. He who does not do so, understands not the force of reason.
If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?
I have discovered that there are two types of command interfaces in the world of computing: good interfaces and user interfaces.
If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been proven?
No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game
Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.
If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the science.
He who loveth a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheerful companion, or an effectual comforter.
The child is not a prisoner of its inheritance; it holds its inheritance as a new creation which its future actions will unfold.
The great poem and the deep theorem are new to every reader, and yet are his own experiences, because he himself recreates them.
Technological possibilities are irresistible to man. If man can go to the moon, he will. If he can control the climate, he will.
I find it fascinating that you can look at the same problem from different perspectives and approach it using different methods.
Mathematicians tend to prefer a worst-case analysis, a kind of paranoia that is especially understandable if you live in Israel!
The simple faith in progress is not a conviction belonging to strength, but one belonging to acquiescence and hence to weakness.
The automatic machine, whatever we thinkof any feelings it may or may not have, is the precise economic equivalent of the slave.
Such is the advantage of a well constructed language that its simplified notation often becomes the source of profound theories.
Good teachers deserve apples; great teachers deserve chocolate. A favorite quotation, written in calligraphy on his office door.
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
Anyone who found the secret of rejoicing when things go well without being annoyed when they go badly would have found the point.
Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living
Nothing hath wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.
Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being.
As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.
All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.
A felicitous but unproved conjecture may be of much more consequence for mathematics than the proof of many a respectable theorem.
Muhammad established a religion by putting his enemies to death; Jesus Christ by commanding his followers to lay down their lives.
Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.
One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.
Civil wars are the greatest of evils. They are inevitable, if we wish to reward merit, for all will say that they are meritorious.
Bodies fall towards the earth as it is in the nature of the earth to attract bodies, just as it is in the nature of water to flow.
It is always noteworthy that all those who seriously study this science [the theory of numbers] conceive a sort of passion for it.
For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.