The mathematician is fascinated with the marvelous beauty of the forms he constructs, and in their beauty he finds everlasting truth.
In N. Rose, Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC: Rome Press Inc., 1988.
Loci: Convergence
Mathematical Quotations
Our library of quotations is organized alphabetically by surname of the author.
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Walton, Izaak
Angling may be said to be so like mathematics that it can never be fully learned.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend
For twenty pages perhaps, he read slowly, carefully, dutifully, with pauses for self-examination and working out examples. Then, just as it was working up and the pauses should have been more scrupulous than ever, a kind of swoon and ecstasy would fall on him, and he read ravening on, sitting up till dawn to finish the book, as though it were a novel. After that his passion was stayed; the book went back to the Library and he was done with mathematics till the next bout. Not much remained with him after these orgies, but something remained: a sensation in the mind, a worshiping acknowledgment of something isolated and unassailable, or a remembered mental joy at the rightness of thoughts coming together to a conclusion, accurate thoughts, thoughts in just intonation, coming together like unaccompanied voices coming to a close.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend
Theology, Mr. Fortune found, is a more accommodating subject than mathematics; its technique of exposition allows greater latitude. For instance when you are gravelled for matter there is always the moral to fall back upon. Comparisons too may be drawn, leading cases cited, types and antetypes analysed and anecdotes introduced. Except for Archimedes mathematics is singularly naked of anecdotes.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend
He resumed:
"In order to ascertain the height of the tree I must be in such a position that the top of the tree is exactly in a line with the top of a measuring stick or any straight object would do, such as an umbrella which I shall secure in an upright position between my feet. Knowing then that the ratio that the height of the tree bears to the length of the measuring stick must equal the ratio that the distance from my eye to the base of the tree bears to my height, and knowing (or being able to find out) my height, the length of the measuring stick and the distance from my eye to the base of the tree, I can, therefore, calculate the height of the tree."
"What is an umbrella?"
Warren, Robert Penn (1905-1989)
What if angry
vectors veer
Round your
sleeping head, and
form.
There's
never need to
fear
Violence
of the poor world's
abstract storm.
Karl Weierstrass
It is true that a mathematician, who is not somewhat of a poet, will never be a perfect mathematician.
Weil, Andre (1906 -1998)
Every mathematician worthy of the name has experienced ... the state of lucid exaltation in which one thought succeeds another as if miraculously ... This feeling may last for hours at a time, even for days. Once you have experienced it, you are eager to repeat it but unable to do it at will, unless perhaps by dogged work ....
Weil, Simone (1909 - 1943)
Algebra and money are essentially levelers; the first intellectually, the second effectively.
H. G. Wells
Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.
West, Nathanael
Prayers for the condemned man will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers constitute the only universal language.
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