Leonhard Euler Quotes

10 Sourced Quotes

To those who ask what the infinitely small quantity in mathematics is, we answer that it is actually zero. Hence there are not so many mysteries hidden in this concept as they are usually believed to be.

Leonhard Euler
Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

Leonhard Euler
To the Queen Mother of Prussia, on his lack of conversation:
Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.

Leonhard Euler
Since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise Creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of maximum or minimum does not appear … there is absolutely no doubt that every affect in the universe can be explained satisfactorily from final causes, by the aid of the method of maxima and minima, as it can be from the effective causes themselves … Of course, when the effective causes are too obscure, but the final causes are readily ascertained, the problem is commonly solved by the indirect method...

Leonhard Euler
A function of a variable quantity is an analytic expression composed in any way whatsoever of the variable quantity and numbers or constant quantities.

Leonhard Euler
For since the fabric of the universe is most perfect and the work of a most wise creator, nothing at all takes place in the universe in which some rule of the maximum or minimum does not appear.

Leonhard Euler
In the theory of numbers, which is still very imperfect, we can place our highest hopes in observations; they will lead us continually to new properties which we shall endeavor to prove afterwards.

Leonhard Euler
We should take great care not to accept as true such properties of the numbers which we have discovered by observation and which are supported by induction alone. Indeed, we should use such a discovery as an opportunity to investigate more exactly the properties discovered and to prove or disprove them; in both cases we may learn something useful.

Leonhard Euler
It will seem not a little paradoxical to ascribe a great importance to observations even in that part of the mathematical sciences which is usually called Pure Mathematics, since the current opinion is that observations are restricted to physical objects that make impressions on the senses.

Leonhard Euler
Although to penetrate into the intimate mysteries of nature and thence to learn the true causes of phenomena is not allowed to us, nevertheless it can happen that a certain fictive hypothesis may suffice for explaining many phenomena.

Leonhard Euler