Quotable Mathematics

"Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it." (Blaise Pascal, "Pensées...

"So blind is the curiosity by which mortals are possessed, that they often conduct their minds along unexplored routes, having no reaso...

  "Anytime new insight replaces an old assumption, or a fossilized perception is the spring. New understandings sprout, new tolerances ...

  "Learning emerges from discovery, not directives; reflection, not rules; possibilities, not prescriptions; diversity, not dogma; crea...

"The characteristic feature of our age results from the wedding of science and engineering. It is the working together of disciplined c...

"Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, as the history of science proves, is an aim with an irresistible fascination for mankind, and whi...

"For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing." (Aristotle, "Nicomachean Ethics", Book II, 349 BC...

" An expert problem solver must be endowed with two incompatible qualities, a restless imagination and a patient pertinacity." (Ho...