Henri Poincaré Quotes

133 Sourced Quotes

The science of physics does not only give us [mathematicians] an opportunity to solve problems, but helps us to discover the means of solving them, and it does this in two ways: it leads us to anticipate the solution and suggests suitable lines of argument.

Henri Poincaré
It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.

Henri Poincaré
Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never satisfied. But as never means no case, I do not see that any progress has been made.

Henri Poincaré
The stars are majestic laboratories, gigantic crucibles, such as no chemist could dream.

Henri Poincaré
The importance of a fact is known by its fruits, that is to say, by the amount of thought which it enables us to economize.

Henri Poincaré
How does it happen that there are people who do not understand mathematics? If mathematics invokes only the rules of logic, such as are accepted by all normal minds; if its evidence is based on principles common to all men, and that none could deny without being mad, how does it come about that so many persons are here refractory?

Henri Poincaré
Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?

Henri Poincaré
Scientific theories are like empires, they are not certain of the morrow.

Henri Poincaré
To obtain a result of real value, it is not enough to grind out calculations or to have a machine to put things in order; it is not order alone, it is unexpected order, which is worth while. The machine may gnaw on the crude fact; the soul of the fact will always escape it.

Henri Poincaré
Why do the rains, the tempests themselves seem to us to come by chance, so that many persons find it quite natural to pray for rain or shine, when they would think it ridiculous to pray for an eclipse?

Henri Poincaré
Sometimes truth frightens us. And in fact we know that it is sometimes deceptive, that it is a phantom never showing itself for a moment except to ceaselessly flee, that it must be pursued further and ever further without ever being attained.

Henri Poincaré
Facts are sterile until there are minds capable of choosing between them and discerning those which conceal something and recognizing that which is concealed; minds which under the bare fact see the soul of the fact.

Henri Poincaré
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