Famous quotes by Mathematicians

"The first object of my endeavours was the means to become perfect and happy"

"To me there has never been a higher source of earthly honor or distinction than that connected with advances in science"

"A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding"

"I bought some books in order to learn the first principles of philosophy"

"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction"

"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy"

"It is the weight, not numbers of experiments that is to be regarded"

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants"

"I am undecided whether or not the Milky Way is but one of countless others all of which form an entire system. Perhaps the light from these infinitely distant galaxies is so faint that we cannot see them"

"I understood that the will could not be improved before the mind had been enlightened"

"If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought"

"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me"

"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people"

"Errors are not in the art but in the artificers"

"We build too many walls and not enough bridges"

"We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances"

"To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me"

"We are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge"

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition"

"No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company"

"Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity"

"Machines take me by surprise with great frequency"

"I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted"

"A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human"

"Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few"

"Virtue is harmony"

"Friends are as companions on a journey, who ought to aid each other to persevere in the road to a happier life"

"We are servants rather than masters in mathematics"

"We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done"

"As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other"