How happy the lot of the mathematician! He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival c...an ever win a reputation he does not deserve. No cashier writes a letter to the press complaining about the incomprehensibility of Modern Mathematics and comparing it unfavorably with the good old days when mathematicians were content to paper irregularly shaped rooms and fill bathtubs without closing the waste pipe.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All science requires mathematics. The knowledge of mathematical things is almost innate in us.... This is the easiest of sciences,... a fact which is obvious in that no one's brain rejects it; for laymen and people who are utterly illiterate know how to count and reckon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach h...im to be civil and sweet-tempered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A kind of Pythagorean terror, as though the irrationality of pi were an offence against the deity, not to mention his creature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... geometry became a symbol for human relations, except that it was better, because in geometry things never go bad. If certain t...hings occur, if certain lines meet, an angle is born. You cannot fail. It's not going to fail; it is eternal. I found in rules of mathematics a peace and a trust that I could not place in human beings. This sublimation was total and remained total. Thus, I'm able to avoid or manipulate or process pain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater:... For he, by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale; Resolve, by sines and tangents straight, If bread and butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock doth strike, by algebra.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I know that two and two make four--& should be glad to prove it too if I could--though I must say if by any sort of process I coul...d convert 2 & 2 into five it would give me much greater pleasure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. "I only took the regular course." "What was that?" inquire...d Alice. "Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied; "and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." "I never heard of 'Uglification,'" Alice ventured to say.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »