Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
In one word, to draw the rule from experience, one must generalize; this is a necessity that imposes itself on the most… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
A very small cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we cannot ignore, and we say that this effect is… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
“ La pensée n'est qu'un écliar au milieu d'une longue nuit. Mais c'est cet éclair qui est tout. Thought is only a… — Henri Poincaré Copy Share Image
When the physicists ask us for the solution of a problem, it is not drudgery that they impose on us, on the… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
“ Derrière la série de Fourier , d'autres séries analogues sont entrées dans la domaine de l'analyse; elles y sont entrees par… — Henri Poincaré Copy Share Image
“ Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of nature… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made? — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
“ Deviner avant de démontrer! Ai-je besoin de rappeler que c'est ainsi que se sont faites toutes les découvertes importantes. Guessing before… — Henri Poincaré Copy Share Image
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection. — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure… — Henri Poincare Copy Share Image
The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves,… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves,… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
A cat is witty, he has nerve, he knows how to do precisely the right thing at the right moment. — Henri Poincare Copy Share
In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. — Henri Poincare Copy Share
Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
“ Qu'une goutee de vin tombe dans un verre d'eau; quelle que soit la loi du movement interne du liquide, nous verrons bientôt se… — Henri Poincaré Copy Share
If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
“ Le savant doit ordonner ; on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une accumulation de… — Henri Poincare Copy Share
