Robert Musil - Collected Quotes

"It is only when one looks not towards the outside, at their utility, but within mathematics itself at the relationship among the unused parts that one sees the other, real face of this science. It is not goal-oriented but uneconomical and passionate… (The mathematician) believes that what he is doing will probably eventually lead to some practical cash value, but this is not what spurs him on; he serves the truth, which is to say his destiny, not its purpose. The result may be economical a thousand times over; what is immanent is a total surrender and a passionate devotion." (Robert Musil, "The Mathematical Man", 1913)

"Let no one object that outside their field mathematicians have banal or silly minds, […] but in their field they do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson and model of their existence; they are an analogy for the intellectual of the future." (Robert Musil, "The Mathematical Man", 1913)

"Mathematics is the bold luxury of pure reason, one of the few that remain today." (Robert Musil, "The Mathematical Man", 1913)

"In their field they [mathematicians] do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson … of their existence. They are an analogy for the intellectual of the future. (Robert Musil," The Mathematical Man", 1913)

"A metaphor holds a truth and an untruth, felt as inextricably bound up with each other. If one takes it as it is and gives it some sensual form, in the shape of reality, one gets dreams and art; but between these two and real, full-scale life there is a glass partition. If one analyzes it for its rational content and separates the unverifiable from the verifiable, one gets truth and knowledge but kills the feeling." (Robert Musil, "Man Without Qualities", 1930)

"Mathematics is the source of a wicked intellect that, while making man the lord of the earth, also makes him the slave of the machine." (Robert Musil, "The Man Without Qualities", 1930)

"What is done for science must also be done for art: accepting undesirable side effects for the sake of the main goal, and moreover diminishing their importance by making this main goal more magnificent. For one should reform forward, not backward: social illnesses, revolutions, are evolutions inhibited by a conserving stupidity. (Robert Musil", "Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses", 1990)