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If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For the price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable things. As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb. Interview with J. W. N. Sullivan, Contemporary Mind, London, 1934.    |
Loci: ConvergenceMathematical QuotationsOur library of quotations is organized alphabetically by surname of the author. Page: 1 of 7 | Next Walton, IzaakAngling may be said to be so like mathematics that it can never be fully learned. Warner, Sylvia TownsendFor 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 TownsendTheology, 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 TownsendHe resumed: Warren, Robert Penn (1905-1989)What if angry
vectors veer Karl WeierstrassIt 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. WellsStatistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write. West, NathanaelPrayers for the condemned man will be offered on an adding machine. Numbers constitute the only universal language. Page: 1 of 7 | Next |
