Carl Friedrich Gauss

We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

...as our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

[On Sophie Germain] When a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

I am giving this winter two courses of lectures to three students, of which one is only moderately prepared, the other less…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

A reply to Olbers' attempt in 1816 to entice him to work on Fermat's Theorem. I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

“It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not the possession of but the act of getting there, which grants the…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Finally, two days ago, I succeeded - not on account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Less depends upon the choice of words than upon this, that their introduction shall be justified by pregnant theorems.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

His second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

“I confess that Fermat 's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, for a multitude of such theorems…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Theory attracts practice as the magnet attracts iron.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

That this subject [of imaginary magnitudes] has hitherto been considered from the wrong point of view and surrounded by a mysterious obscurity,…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be…

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

There have been only three epoch-making mathematicians, Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss

Ask her to wait a moment I am almost done.

— Carl Friedrich Gauss