Why don't we want our children to learn to do mathematics? Is it that we don't trust them, that we think it's… — Paul Lockhart Copy Share Image
“The issue, then, is not, What is the best way to teach? but, What is mathematics really all about?... Controversies about…teaching cannot… — Reuben Hersh Copy Share Image
An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the… — Stephen Smale Copy Share Image
We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness,… — Roger Penrose Copy Share Image
Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for… — Otto Weininger Copy Share Image
The usefulness of mathematics in furthering the sciences is commonly acknowledged: but outside the ranks of the experts there is little inquiry… — Herbert Turnbull Copy Share Image
“And I'll go even further and say that mathematics, this art of abstract pattern-making — even more than storytelling, painting, or music… — Paul Lockhart Copy Share Image
Perhaps the best reason for regarding mathematics as an art is not so much that it affords an outlet for creative activity… — Morris Kline Copy Share Image
How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably… — Albert Einstein Copy Share Image
When Daniel Gorenstein was chair, he did mathematics from 5am to 12noon, spending the second half of his working day on administration.… — Richard A. Falk Copy Share Image
More than other subjects, there's a myth that you have to be an absolute genius to be good at maths and to… — Rachel Riley Copy Share Image
The development of mathematics toward greater precision has led, as is well known, to the formalization of large tracts of it, so… — Kurt Gödel Copy Share Image
Mathematics had never had more than a secondary interest for him ; and even logic he cared for chiefly as a means… — Mary Everest Boole Copy Share Image
“I have been able to solve a few problems of mathematical physics on which the greatest mathematicians since Euler have struggled in… — Hermann von Helmholtz Copy Share Image
Mathematics never reveals man to the degree, never expresses him in the way, that any other field of human endeavour does: the… — Stanislaw Lem Copy Share Image
White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires ... We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what… — Al Sharpton Copy Share Image
Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will… — Blaise Pascal Copy Share Image
“[Benjamin Peirce's] lectures were not easy to follow. They were never carefully prepared. The work with which he rapidly covered the blackboard… — William Elwood Byerly Copy Share Image
If my false figures came near to the facts, this happened merely by chance ... These comments are not worth printing. Yet… — Johannes Kepler Copy Share Image
I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his… — John Edensor Littlewood Copy Share Image
Solving a problem for which you know there’s an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone… — Yoko Ogawa Copy Share Image
All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us. This is the easiest of sciences, a fact… — Roger Bacon Copy Share Image
I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid-a term used in this work to… — Benoit Mandelbrot Copy Share Image
“...the following parable may be useful. Long ago, when shepherds wanted to see if two herds of sheep were isomorphic, they would… — John C. Baez Copy Share Image
Lully's machine, Mill's fear and Lasswitz's chaotic library can be the subject of jokes, but they exaggerate a propensity which is common:… — Jorge Luis Borges Copy Share Image
“Do numbers hold spiritual significance? Perhaps they do. For me, the most powerful numbers are two and six because when you multiply… — Darren Main Copy Share Image
There are very few theorems in advanced analysis which have been demonstrated in a logically tenable manner. Everywhere one finds this miserable… — Niels Henrik Abel Copy Share Image
“Be honest: did you actually read [the above geometric proof]? Of course not. Who would want to? The effect of such a… — Paul Lockhart Copy Share Image
In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from… — John Edensor Littlewood Copy Share Image
“the singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret quadratic nature… — Umberto Eco Copy Share Image
“Put the number seven in front of a mirror and what do you have? If you answered 77, then perhaps you talk… — Jarod Kintz Copy Share Image
Well, part of it is a longstanding belief - it's been in our education establishment at least since the 1930s - that… — Lynne Cheney Copy Share Image
Combinatorial analysis, in the trivial sense of manipulating binomial and multinomial coefficients, and formally expanding powers of infinite series by applications ad… — Richard Askey Copy Share Image
If present trends continue, our country may soon find itself far behind many other nations in both science and technology nations where,… — Martin Gardner Copy Share Image
[T]he 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and therefore if… — Sydney Smith Copy Share Image
For hundreds of pages the closely-reasoned arguments unroll, axioms and theorems interlock. And what remains with us in the end? A general… — Michael Frayn Copy Share Image
As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do… — Blaise Pascal Copy Share Image
Standard mathematics has recently been rendered obsolete by the discovery that for years we have been writing the numeral five backward. This… — Woody Allen Copy Share Image
Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the… — D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Copy Share Image
The regular division of the plane into congruent figures evoking an association in the observer with a familiar natural object is one… — M. C. Escher Copy Share Image
![“An announcement of [Christopher] Zeeman's lecture at Northwestern University in the spring of 1977 contains a quote describing catastrophe theory as the most important development in mathematics since the invention of calculus 300 years ago.” quote by Stephen Smale](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/42a/stephen-smale-279769_announcements_an-announcement-of-christopher-zeeman-s_2260453.jpg)
![“White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires ... We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was ... we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.” quote by Al Sharpton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a27/al-sharpton-2091_architecture_white-folks-was-in-the-caves-while-we-bl_1328323.jpg)
![“[Benjamin Peirce's] lectures were not easy to follow. They were never carefully prepared. The work with which he rapidly covered the blackboard was very illegible, marred with frequent erasures, and not infrequent mistakes (he worked too fast for accuracy). He was always ready to digress from the…” quote by William Elwood Byerly](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cf3/william-elwood-byerly-107525_benjamin-peirce_benjamin-peirce-s-lectures-were-not-easy_1207206.jpg)
![“Be honest: did you actually read [the above geometric proof]? Of course not. Who would want to? The effect of such a production being made over something so simple is to make people doubt their own intuition. Calling into question the obvious by insisting that it be 'rigorously proved' ... is to…” quote by Paul Lockhart](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e5b/paul-lockhart-18353_geometry_be-honest-did-you-actually-read-the-abov_1114656.jpg)
![“[T]he 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and therefore if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for getting rid of the multiplication table, and…” quote by Sydney Smith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/709/sydney-smith-6523_abstract_t-he-47th-proposition-in-euclid-might-no_463551.jpg)
