Quotable Mathematics

"The sciences bring into play the imagination, the building of images in which the reality, of the past is blended with the ideals for ...

"The true mathematician is always a great deal of an artist, an architect, yes, of a poet. Beyond the real world, though perceptibly co...

"Infinity is the land of mathematical hocus pocus. There Zero the magician is king. When Zero divides any number he changes it without ...

"Mathematics [...] would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly...

"[It used to be that] geometry must, like logic, rely on formal reasoning in order to rebut the quibblers. But the tables have turned. ...

"In order to know the curvature of a curve, the determination of the radius of the osculating circle furnishes us the best measure, whe...

"The theory of Numbers has always been regarded as one of the most obviously useless branches of Pure Mathematics. The accusation is on...

"Whoever surveys the curious fabric of the universe can never imagine, that so noble a structure should be fram’d for no other use,...

"Thus, the central theme that runs through my remarks is that complexity frequently takes the form of hierarchy, and that hierarchic sy...

"The arts which are useful, and absolutely necessary to the architect are painting and mathematics." (Leon Battista Alberti, ...