Mathematics Quotes by Bertrand Russell

The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.

— Bertrand Russell

I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.

— Bertrand Russell

The true spirit of delight...is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

— Bertrand Russell

Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

— Bertrand Russell

The pure mathematician, like the musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics is only the art of saying the same thing in different words.

— Bertrand Russell

To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

— Bertrand Russell

The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to…

— Bertrand Russell

Analytic It is clear that the definition of "logic" or "mathematics" must be sought by trying to give a new definition of…

— Bertrand Russell

“It might seem that the empirical philosopher is the slave of his material, but that the pure mathematician, like the musician, is…

— Bertrand Russell

I am delighted to know that Principia Mathematica can now be done by machinery. . . I am quite willing to believe…

— Bertrand Russell

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence,…

— Bertrand Russell

3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox; as is a paradox why the number 1 is…

— Bertrand Russell

Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers…

— Bertrand Russell

Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of…

— Bertrand Russell

... mathematical knowledge ... is, in fact, merely verbal knowledge. "3" means "2+1", and "4" means "3+1". Hence it follows (though the…

— Bertrand Russell

The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has…

— Bertrand Russell

It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make…

— Bertrand Russell

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of…

— Bertrand Russell

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would,…

— Bertrand Russell

What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to assimilated as a part of daily…

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern…

— Bertrand Russell

Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may…

— Bertrand Russell

But as the work proceeded I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant…

— Bertrand Russell

... the word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate…

— Bertrand Russell

It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater;…

— Bertrand Russell

“Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such…

— Bertrand Russell

Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle , but he…

— Bertrand Russell

“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty— a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to…

— Bertrand Russell

Calculating machines do sums better than even the cleverest people… As arithmetic has grown easier, it has come to be less respected.

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.

— Bertrand Russell

But I simply can't stand a view limited to this earth, I feel life is so small unless it has windows into…

— Bertrand Russell

For a good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it seem almost like a live teacher.

— Bertrand Russell

Zeno was concerned with three problems... These are the problem of the infinitesimal, the infinite, and continuity.

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture

— Bertrand Russell

Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

— Bertrand Russell

At first it seems obvious, but the more you think about it the stranger the deductions from this axiom seem to become;…

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are…

— Bertrand Russell

To a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-footed…

— Bertrand Russell