Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.
W.H. Auden and L. Kronenberger The Viking Book of Aphorisms, New York: Viking Press, 1966.
Loci: Convergence
Mathematical Quotations
Our library of quotations is organized alphabetically by surname of the author.
Bell, Eric Temple (1883-1960)
Wherever groups disclosed themselves, or could be introduced, simplicity crystallized out of comparative chaos.
Bell, Eric Temple (1883-1960)
It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences.
Bell, Eric Temple (1883-1960)
Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions.
Belloc, Hillaire (1870-1953)
Statistics are the triumph of the quantitative method, and the quantitative method is the victory of sterility and death.
Bentham, Jeremy (1748-1832)
O Logic: born gatekeeper to the Temple of Science, victim of capricious destiny: doomed hitherto to be the drudge of pedants: come to the aid of thy master, Legislation.
Bernoulli, Johann
But just as much as it is easy to find the differential of a given quantity, so it is difficult to find the integral of a given differential. Moreover, sometimes we cannot say with certainty whether the integral of a given quantity can be found or not.
Bernoulli, Jacques (Jakob?) (1654-1705)
I recognize the lion by his paw.
[After reading an anonymous solution to a problem that he realized was Newton's solution.]
Bernoulli, Daniel
...it would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.
Besicovitch, A.S.
A mathematician's reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has given.
Blake
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
Blake
God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!
Bohr, Niels Henrik David (1885-1962)
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.
Bolyai, Janos (1802 - 1860)
Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe.
Bolyai, Wolfgang (1775-1856)
[To son Janos:]
For God's sake, please give it up. Fear it no less than the sensual passion, because it, too, may take up all your time and deprive you of your health, peace of mind and happiness in life.
[Bolyai's father urging him to give up work on non-Euclidian geometry.]
Bourbaki
Structures are the weapons of the mathematician.
Bridgman, P. W.
It is the merest truism, evident at once to unsophisticated observation, that mathematics is a human invention.
Brown, George Spencer (1923 - )
To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set abut it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are continually being thrust upon them.
Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)
...indeed what reason may not go to Schoole to the wisdome of Bees, Aunts, and Spiders? what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us? ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromidaries and Camels; these I confesse, are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand; but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematicks, and the civilitie of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisedome of their Maker.
Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)
God is like a skilful Geometrician.
Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)
All things began in Order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again, according to the Ordainer of Order, and the mystical mathematicks of the City of Heaven.