18th-century Mathematician Quotes

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Leonhard Euler

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Joseph Fourier

André-Marie Ampère

Joseph Louis Lagrange

François Arago

In the Theory of Numbers it happens rather frequently that, by some unexpected luck, the most elegant new truths spring up by induction.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

This is what it behoves us to know: as Frenchmen, for the advantage of France; as friends of all humanity, by that just and generous sentiment which makes us feel interest in the dignity, the peace, the independence, the happiness of all nations, on whatever spot of the globe nature may have placed their country.

It seems to be true that many things have as it were, an epoch in which they are discovered in several places simultaneously, just as the violets appear on all sides in springtime.

I think that considerable progress can be made in the analysis of the operations of nature by the scholar who reduces rather complicated phenomena to their proximate causes and primitive forces, even though the causes of those causes have not yet been detected.

As to the propriety and justness of representing sums of money, and time, by parts of space, tho' very readily agreed to by most men, yet a few seem to apprehend there may possibly be some deception in it, of which they are not aware...

William Playfair

The engineer should receive a complete mathematical education, but for what should it serve him? To see the different aspects of things and to see them quickly; he has no time to hunt mice.

Siméon Denis Poisson

No one ever squared the circle with so much genius, or, excepting his principal object, with so much success.

Jean-Étienne Montucla

The infinitely small neither have nor can have theory; it is a dangerous instrument in the hands of beginners [...] anticipating, for my part, the judgement of posterity, I would dare predict that this method will be accused one day, and rightly, of having retarded the progress of the mathematical sciences.

Francois-Joseph Servois

Whenever I meet in Laplace with the words 'Thus it plainly appears', I am sure that hours and perhaps days, of hard study will alone enable me to discover how it plainly appears.

Nathaniel Bowditch

I should always call inventor him who first publishes, or at least communicates [the idea] to his friends.

If anyone asked me to define time, I should reply: "Do you know what it is that you speak of?" If he said "Yes," I should answer, "Very well, let us talk about it." If he said "No," I should answer, "Very well, let us talk about something else."

It is indeed wonderful that so simple a figure as the triangle is so inexhaustible in properties. How many as yet unknown properties of other figures may there not be?"

August Leopold Crelle

There is no philosophy which is not founded upon knowledge of the phenomena, but to get any profit from this knowledge it is absolutely necessary to be a mathematician.

Daniel Bernoulli

To make every event depend upon the twinkling of a star, is an absurdity equal to that of the Lapland witches, who pretend to regulate the course of the winds by tying knots in a string.

John Bonnycastle

Modesty is a desertion of ourselves, a kind of avowal of inferiority, at which mediocrity catches greedily as a source of consolation, which it endeavors to interpret in the literal sense, and which it frequently employs as a weapon to keep at a distance the timid man of genius,

The processes of nature lie so deep, that, after all the pains we can take, much, perhaps, will remain undiscovered beyond the reach of human art or skill. But this is no reason why we should give ourselves up to the belief of fictions, be they ever so ingenious, instead of hearkening to the unerring voice of nature...

Colin Maclaurin

Even in the realm of things which do not claim actuality, and do not even claim possibility, there exist beyond dispute sets which are infinite.

Bernard Bolzano

It is to the influence of the opinion of those whom the multitude judges best informed and to whom it has been accustomed to give its confidence in regard to the most important matters of life that the propagation of those errors [pertaining to errors of truth] is due which in times of ignorance have covered the face of the earth.

Pierre-Simon Laplace

I wonder what an astronomy would look like which has been rigorously demonstrated in every respect. It seems as if one can get to the truth only through a series of hypotheses, and that one has to reject each previous one to espouse the next and to abandon it again.

Johann Heinrich Lambert

To history we shall adhere no farther, than is sufficient to preserve an unbroken series of methods gradually becoming more exact and extensive; the series beginning with the first rude, though perfectly just, method of James Bernoulli, and ending with Lagrange's exquisite and refined Calculus of Variations.

Robert Woodhouse

In general, nothing measurable can be measured except by fractions expressing the result of the measurement, unless the measure be contained an exact number of times in the thing to be measured.

Joseph Louis Lagrange

It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion, that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the efficacy of mechanic's institutes, or even of primary and elementary schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry, so long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.

Thomas Chalmers

It is a certain fact, that, in mathematicians who have confined their studies to mathematics alone, there has often been observed a proneness to that species of religious enthusiasm in which imagination is the predominant element, and which, like a contagion, is propagated in a crowd.

Experiment is a more efficient mean than Observation, for exploring the secrets of Nature. It requires no constant fatigue of watching, but comes in a great measure under the control of the inquirer, who may often at will either hasten or delay the expected event.

John Leslie (physicist)

Residues arise … naturally in several branches of analysis …. Their consideration provides simple and easy-to-use methods, which are applicable to a large number of diverse questions, and some new results ….

Augustin-Louis Cauchy