"I think that those concerned with the sciences [mathemata] are men of discernment, and it is not strange that they should think correctly about the nature of particular things. And so they have handed down to us clear knowledge of the speed of the heavenly bodies and their risings and settings, of geometry, numbers and, not least, of the science of music. For these sciences seem to be related: they are concerned with the first two kinds of what is, which are related." (Archytas, cca 5th century)
"Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof." (Nicolaus Copernicus, "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" ["De revolutionibus orbium coelestium"], 1543
"A mathematician, as good as he may be, without the support of a good drawing, is nothing but a half-mathematician, but also a man without eyes." (Lodovico Cardi, [letter to Galileo Galilei] 1611)
"Grant a mathematician but one minute principle, he immediately draws a consequence from it, to which you must necessarily assent; and from this consequence another, till he leads you so far (whether you will or no) that you have much ado to believe all he has proved, and what you have already assented to." (Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds", 1686)
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