Quotable Mathematics

"If statistical graphics, although born just yesterday, extends its reach every day, it is because it replaces long tables of numbers a...

"The drawing shows me at a glance what would be spread over ten pages in a book." (Ivan Turgenev, 1862) [2] "Sometimes, half ...

"Although arguments can be made that high data density does not imply that a graphic will be good, nor one with low density bad, it doe...

  "As knowledge increases amongst mankind and transactions multiply, it becomes more and more desirable to abbreviate and facilitate th...

"Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is...

"Of the figures, the first is especially scientific. The mathematical sciences carry out their demonstrations through it – e.g. arithme...

"After all the progress I have made in these matters, I am still not happy with Algebra, because it provides neither the shortest ways ...

"The fact must be expressed as data, but there is a problem in that the correct data is difficult to catch. So that I always say 'W...

"Any pattern of activity in a network, regarded as consistent by some observer, is a system, Certain groups of observers, who share a c...

"Concept maps have long provided visual languages widely used in many different disciplines and application domains. Abstractly, they a...

"The diagrams incorporate a large amount of information. Their use provides extensive savings in space and in mental effort. In the cas...

"A graphic should not only show the leaves, it should show the branches as well as the entire tree." (Jacques Bertin, "The Se...

"The concepts which now prove to be fundamental to our understanding of nature- a space which is finite; a space which is empty, so tha...

"The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it." (Rémy de Gourmont, "Philosophic Nights in Paris", 19...

"[…] mystery is an inescapable ingredient of mathematics. Mathematics is full of unanswered questions, which far outnumber known theore...