Brown University Quotes

Mathematics is one of the essential emanations of the human spirit, a thing to be valued in and for itself, like art or poetry.

Mathematics is as old as Man.

Mathematics is, as it were, a sensuous logic, and relates to philosophy as do the arts, music, and plastic art to poetry.

Many who have had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confuse it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.

The reason why we do maths is because it's like poetry. It's about patterns, and that really turned me on. It made me feel that maths was in tune with the other things I liked doing.

Mathematics has beauty and romance. It's not a boring place to be, the mathematical world. It's an extraordinary place; it's worth spending time there.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

I have found a very great number of exceedingly beautiful theorems.

I've always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing any idea.

It is a lucky thing that newspaper reporters do not attend these meetings. If they did, they would see how little our activities are related to the real needs of society.

There's a beauty to math. Math is so simple. It's just one step after the next.

Some are created for beauty, and some for use; and there are some which one can do without altogether.

To speak freely of mathematics, I find it the highest exercise of the spirit; but at the same time I know that it is so useless that I make little distinction between a man who is only a mathematician and a common artisan. Also, I call it the most beautiful profession in the world; but it is only a profession.

The science of mathematics presents the most brilliant example of how pure reason may successfully enlarge its domain without the aid of experience

The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so.

Beauty is as useful as the useful. More so, perhaps. (Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus peut-etre.)

Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.

Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.

I tried reading Hilbert. Only his papers published in mathematical periodicals were available at the time. Anybody who has tried those knows they are very hard reading.

Math is one of my favorite subjects.

Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.

The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.

We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for humanity.

There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world

The essence of mathematics lies precisely in its freedom.