Mathematics · Skopia

Quotes

11

Philosophy is written in this grand book-I mean the universe-which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.

Galileo Galilei

1623

★ 6.9

God made integers, all else is the work of man.

Leopold Kronecker

1886

★ 4.5

Philosophical literature

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding · 1748

★ 3.7

The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.

A Mathematician's Apology · 1940

★ 2.5

All 11 in quotes →

Books

4

Euclid's Elements

300 BC★ 7.6

Godel, Escher, Bach

Douglas Hofstadter

1979★ 6.9

Being and Event

1988★ 5.5

One, Two, Three ... Infinity

1947★ 4.6