"I think that it is a relatively good……" — John Von Neumann
"I think that it is a relatively good approximation to truth which is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations, that mathematical ideas originate in empirics. But, once they are conceived, the subject begins to live a peculiar life of its own and is...governed by almost entirely aesthetical motivations. In other words, at a great distance from its empirical source, or after much 'abstract' inbreeding, a mathematical subject is in danger of degeneration. Whenever this stage is reached the only remedy seems to me to be the rejuvenating return to the source: the reinjection of more or less directly empirical ideas."
—
John Von Neumann
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 avg (0 ratings)
More Abstract Quotes
This quote is filed under Abstract Quotes,
one of 741 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
-
To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.
— Honore de Balzac
-
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really…
— Jean-Michel Basquiat
-
In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.
— Theodor Adorno
-
None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.
— Theodor Adorno
-
Good science fiction is intelligent. It asks big questions that are on people's minds. It's not impossible. It has some…
— Nicolas Cage
-
Science fiction is a way that I can go into the abstract, go into the imagination, and audiences are still…
— Nicolas Cage
-
I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery.
— Eric Cantona
-
Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered.
— Al Capp
-
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change…
— Saul Alinsky
-
'Woman on the Plaza,' with its distinct horizon, snow-like surfaces, wintry wall, stunning sunlight, sharp shadows, and hurrying figure, would…
— Sam Abell
-
Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply…
— John Dewey
-
It is difficult to talk about fashion in the abstract, without a human body before my eyes, without drawings, without…
— Giorgio Armani
See all 741 Abstract Quotes »