Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
French Mathematician Quotes
Source
Report...
Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions against the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.
Blaise Pascal
Source
Report...
If paparazzi specialized in mathematical celebrities they'd camp outside the dining hall at the IAS and come away with a new batch of pictures every day.
Cédric Villani
Source
Report...
I cannot tell you the efforts to which I was condemned to understand something of the diagrams of Descriptive Geometry, which I detest.
Charles Hermite
Source
Report...
Indeed every mathematician knows that a proof has not been "understood" if one has done nothing more than verify step by step the correctness of the deductions of which it is compose d and has not tried to gain a clear insight into the ideas which have led to the construction of this particular chain of deductions in preference to every other one.
Nicolas Bourbaki
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Papers should include more side remarks, open questions, and such. Very often, these are more interesting than the theorems actually proved. Alas, most people are afraid to admit that they don't know the answer to some question, and as a consequence they refrain from mentioning the question, even if it is a very natural one. What a pity! As for myself, I enjoy saying 'I do not know'.
Jean-Pierre Serre
Source
Report...
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.
Charles Dupin
Source
Report...
We have found a beautiful and most general proposition, namely, that every integer is either a square, or the sum of two, three or at most four squares. This theorem depends on some of the most recondite mysteries of number, and is not possible to present its proof on the margin of this page.
Pierre de Fermat
Source
Report...
The mathematics have been in all ages the implacable adversaries of scientific romances.
François Arago
Source
Report...
He who shall wish to disentangle this proposition will easily be able to compose a volume.
Girard Desargues
Source
Report...
Functions, just like living beings are characterized by their singularities.
Paul Montel
Source
Report...
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,
Charles Bossut
Source
Report...
When a branch of mathematics ceases to interest any but the specialists, it is very near its death, or at any rate dangerously close to paralysis, from which it can be rescued only by being plunged back into the vivifying source of the science.
André Weil
Source
Report...
I have always thought that morality in politics was something essential, just like feelings and affinities.
Laurent Schwartz
Source
Report...
A very extensive class of phenomena exists, not produced by mechanical forces, but resulting simply from the presence and accumulation of heat. This part of natural philosophy cannot be connected with dynamical theories, it has principles peculiar to itself, and is founded on a method similar to that of other exact sciences.
Joseph Fourier
Source
Report...
Anyone who understands algebraic notation, reads at a glance in an equation results reached arithmetically only with great labour and pains.
Antoine Augustin Cournot
Source
Report...
Mathematicks therefore is a Science which teaches or contemplates whatever is capable of Measure or Number as such. When it relates to Number, it is called Arithmetick; but when to measure, as Length, Breadth, Depth, Degrees of Velocity in Motion, Intenseness or Remissness of Sounds, Augmentation or Diminution of Quality, 6tc. it is called Geometry.
Jacques Ozanam
Source
Report...
Axiomatization is what one does last, it's rubbish. It's the hygiene of mathematics, axiomatization.
Serge Lang
Source
Report...
Mathematicians have never been in full agreement on their science, though it is said to be the science of self-evident verities — absolute, indisputable and definitive. They have always been in controversy over the developing aspects of mathematics, and they have always considered their own age to be a period of crisis.
Henri Lebesgue
Source
Report...
We use Reason for improving the Sciences; whereas we ought to use the Sciences for improving our Reason.
Antoine Arnauld
Source
Report...
I had become interested in economics, an interest that was transformed into a lifetime dedication when I met with the mathematical theory of general economic equilibrium.
Gérard Debreu
Source
Report...
In repeating an argument that I have learned, I could readily have discovered it myself: or rather, even if this is an illusion, if I were not clever enough to have created it myself, I rediscover it myself, to the extent that I repeat it.
Henri Poincaré
Source
Report...
[Mathematics] is the work of the human mind, which is destined rather to study than to know, to seek the truth rather than to find it.
Évariste Galois
Source
Report...
Chaos cuts with two edges. We have seen how it is impossible to retrieve past history from current observations. We will now show that it is impossible to predict future states from the current observations.
Ivar Ekeland
Source
Report...
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
1
2
Quote of the day
... it is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.
Randall Jarrell
Related Quotes
By profession
Mathematician Quotes
Women Mathematicians
By nationality
British Mathematicians
German Mathematicians
American Mathematicians
By century
20th-century Mathematicians
19th-century Mathematicians
18th-century Mathematicians
17th-century Mathematicians
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes