"From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other."
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Math quotes
Math
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Math quotes (page 9 of 75)
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"We teach reading, writing and math by [having students do] them. But we teach democracy by lecture."
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"Math is sometimes called the science of patterns."
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"Give me extension and motion and I will construct the universe."
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"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast."
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"Mathematics is the music of reason."
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"One can't believe impossible things."
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"Geometry is one and eternal shining in the mind of God. That share in it accorded to men is one of the reasons that Man is the image of God."
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"Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind."
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"I know that two and two make four - and should be glad to prove it too if I could - though I must say if by any sort of process I could convert 2 and 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure."
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"Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform."
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"Yes, we now have to divide up our time like that, between politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
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"There is nothing strange in the circle being the origin of any and every marvel."
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"He who has heard the same thing told by 12,000 eye-witnesses has only 12,000 probabilities, which are equal to one strong probability, which is far from certain."
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"I'd say it's that most people think that very wealthy people take huge risks and that's why they have huge rewards. But the very best on earth are completely obsessed with not losing money. That sounds overly simplistic, but they know that if you lost 50 percent, it takes 100 percent to get even. Most people don't make that math in their head, so it takes years and years. They are obsessed with not losing money."
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"I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh."
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"These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so, and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered."
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"Many people keep deploring the low level of formal education in the United states (as defined by, say, math grades). Yet these fail to realize that the new comes from here and gets imitated elsewhere. And it is not thanks to universities, which obviously claim a lot more credit than their accomplishments warrant. Like Britain in the Industrial Revolution, America's asset is, simply, risk taking and the use of optionality, this remarkable ability to engage in rational forms fo trial and error, with no comparative shame in failing again, starting again, and repeating failure."
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"On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.)"
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"If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again."
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