George Boole Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

It is not of the essence of mathematics to be conversant with the ideas of number and quantity.

George Boole
Of the many forms of false culture, a premature converse with abstractions is perhaps the most likely to prove fatal to the growth of a masculine vigour of intellect.

George Boole
Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave neither room nor demand for a theory of probabilities.

George Boole
No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it gives the impression of also being beautiful.

George Boole
[Boole's apparent goal was to] unfold the secret laws and relations of those high faculties of thought by which all beyond the merely perceptive knowledge of the world and of ourselves is attained or matured, is a object which does not stand in need of commendation to a rational mind.

George Boole
The general laws of Nature are not, for the most part, immediate objects of perception.

George Boole
So to apprehend in all particular instances the relation of cause and effect, as to connect the two extremes in thought according to the order in which they are connected in nature (for the modus operandi is, and must ever be, unknown to us), is the final object of science.

George Boole
Logic is conversant with two kinds of relations, relations among things, and relations among facts.

George Boole
Each new scientific conception gives occasion to new applications of deductive reasoning; but those applications may be only possible through the methods and the processes which belong to an earlier stage.

George Boole
That logic, as a science, is susceptible of very wide applications is admitted; but it is equally certain that its ultimate forms and processes are mathematical.

George Boole
It is the ability inherent in our nature to appreciate Order, and the concurrent presumption, however founded, that the phenomena of Nature are connected by a principle of Order. Without these, the general truths of physical science could never have been ascertained.

George Boole
To infer the existence of an intelligent cause from the teeming evidences of surrounding design, to rise to the conception of a moral Governor of the world, from the study of the constitution and the moral provisions of our own nature; - these, though but the feeble steps of an understanding limited in its faculties and its materials of knowledge, are of more avail than the ambitious attempt to arrive at a certainty unattainable on the ground of natural religion. And as these were the most ancient, so are they still the most solid foundations, Revelation being set apart, of the belief that the course of this world is not abandoned to chance and inexorable fate.

George Boole
The above interpretation has been introduced, not on account of its immediate value in the present system, but as an illustration of a significant fact in the philosophy of the intellectual powers, viz., that what has commonly been regarded as the fundamental axiom of metaphysics is but the consequence of a law of thought, mathematical in its form.

George Boole
Let us conceive, then, of an algebra in which the symbols x, y z etc. admit indifferently of the values 0 and 1, and of these values alone The laws, the axioms, and the processes, of such an Algebra will be identical in their whole extend with the laws, the axioms, and the processes of an Algebra of Logic. Difference of interpretation will alone divide them. Upon this principle the method of the following work is established.

George Boole
That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.

George Boole
I am fully assured, that no general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognize, not only the special numerical bases of the science, but also those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning, and which, whatever they may be as to their essence, are at least mathematical as to their form.

George Boole
Mr. Gregory: Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and author of the -well-known Examples. Few in so short a life have done so much for science. The high sense which I entertain of his merits as a mathematician, is mingled with feelings of gratitude for much valuable assistance rendered to me in my earlier essays.

George Boole
That axiom of Metaphysicians which is termed the principle of contradiction and which affirms that it is impossible for anything to possess a quality, and in the same time not to possess it, is a consequence of the fundamental law of thought, whose expression is x²=x.

George Boole
The most accomplished in the use of symbols must sometimes throw aside his abstractions and resort to homelier methods for trial and verification - not doubting, in so doing, the truth which lies at the bottom of his symbolism, but distrusting his own powers.

George Boole
I have endeavoured, in the following treatise, to convey as complete an account of the present state of knowledge on the subject of Differential Equations, as was consistent with the idea of a work intended, primarily, for elementary instruction. It was my object, first of all, to meet the wants of those who had no previous acquaintance with the subject, but I also desired not quite to disappoint others who might seek for more v advanced information. These distinct, but not inconsistent - aims determined the plan of composition.

George Boole
It has been said, that the principle involved in the above and in similar applications is that of the equal distribution of our knowledge, or rather of our ignorance the assigning to different states of things of which we know nothing, and upon the very ground that we know nothing, equal degrees of probability. I apprehend, however, that this is an arbitrary method of procedure. Instances may occur, and one such has been adduced, in which different hypotheses lead to the same final conclusion.

George Boole
I presume that few who have paid any attention to the history of the Mathematical Analysis, will doubt that it has been developed in a certain order, or that that order has been, to a great extent, necessary — being determined, either by steps of logical deduction, or by the successive introduction of new ideas and conceptions, when the time for their evolution had arrived.

George Boole
Let x represent an act of the mind by which we fix our regard upon that portion of time for which the proposition X is true ; and let this meaning be understood when it is asserted that x denote the time for which the proposition X is true. (...) We shall term x the representative symbol of the proposition X.

George Boole
The design of the following treatise is to investigate the fundamental laws of those operations of the mind by which reasoning is performed; to give expression to them in the symbolical language of a Calculus, and upon this foundation to establish the science of Logic and construct its method ; to make that method itself the basis of a general method for the application of the mathematical doctrine of Probabilities ; and, finally, to collect from the various elements of truth brought to view in the course of these inquiries some probable intimations concerning the nature and constitution of the human mind.

George Boole
You will feel interested to know the fate of my mathematical speculations in Cambridge. One of the papers is already printed in the Mathematical Journal. Another, which I sent a short time ago, has been very favourably received, and will shortly be printed together with one I had previously sent.

George Boole