Mathematics - Quotes
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
Medicine makes people ill, mathematics make them sad and theology makes them sinful.
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature.
Outside observers often assume that the more complicated a piece of mathematics is, the more mathematicians admire it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mathematicians admire elegance and simplicity above all else, and the ultimate goal in solving a problem is to find the method that does the job in the most efficient manner.
In many cases, mathematics is an escape from reality. The mathematician finds his own monastic niche and happiness in pursuits that are disconnected from external affairs. Some practice it as if using a drug.
So far as the theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain, they are not about reality.
It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics.
In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth.
One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza`s God, it won`t love us in return.
It is always the case, with mathematics, that a little direct experience of thinking over things on your own can provide a much deeper understanding than merely reading about them.