Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes

Quotes about:

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  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

  Mathematics, Mathematical, Possession

  Letter to Farkas Bolyai, September 02, 1808.

  107 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the queen of sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations she is entitled to the first rank.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Queens, Numbers, Firsts

  "Gauss zum Gedächtniss". Book by Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, 1856.

  69 Copy quote

• Theory attracts practice as the magnet attracts iron.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Math, Practice, Iron

  62 Copy quote

• You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Time, Writing, Math

  "Calculus Gems". Book by George F. Simmons, 1992.

  74 Copy quote

• You have no idea, how much poetry there is in the calculation of a table of logarithms!

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Ideas, Tables, Calculations

  59 Copy quote

• 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

  Time, Math, Science

  "The Mind and the Eye: A Study of the Biologist's Standpoint". Book by A. Arber, 1954.

  49 Copy quote

• If others would but reflect on mathematical truths as deeply and as continuously as I have, they would make my discoveries.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Truth, Science, Discovery

  "The World of Mathematics". Book by J. R. Newman, 1956.

  48 Copy quote

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

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Spring, Clothes, Brilliant

  83 Copy quote

• The Infinite is only a manner of speaking.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Infinite

  13 Copy quote

• It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again; the never-satisfied man is so strange if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully,but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Learning, Knowledge, Science

  36 Copy quote

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

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Science, Three, Newton

  "Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science". Book by Eric Temple Bell, 1951.

  59 Copy quote

• Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Programming, Shoulders, Mathematician

  49 Copy quote

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

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Sublime, Enchanting, Charm

  Letter to Sophie Germain, April 30, 1807.

  38 Copy quote

• We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Humility, Math, Reality

  Letter to Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, 1830.

  47 Copy quote

• No contradictions will arise as long as Finite Man does not mistake the infinite for something fixed, as long as he is not led by an acquired habit of mind to regard the infinite as something bounded.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mistake, Men, Long

  13 Copy quote

• Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Queens, Math, Arithmetic

  30 Copy quote

• There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Lying, Math, Science

  "The World of Mathematics". Book by J. R. Newman, 1956.

  7 Copy quote

• Mathematics is concerned only with the enumeration and comparison of relations.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Math, Relation, Concerned

  17 Copy quote

• I have a true aversion to teaching. The perennial business of a professor of mathematics is only to teach the ABC of his science; most of the few pupils who go a step further, and usually to keep the metaphor, remain in the process of gathering information, become only Halbwisser [one who has superficial knowledge of the subject], for the rarer talents do not want to have themselves educated by lecture courses, but train themselves. And with this thankless work the professor loses his precious time.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Education, Teaching, Science

  19 Copy quote

• I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mean, Math, Two

  Letter to Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on May 14, 1826. "Calculus Gems". Book by George F. Simmons, 1992.

  39 Copy quote

• Mathematical discoveries, like springtime violets in the woods, have their season which no human can hasten or retard.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Science, Discovery, Woods

  18 Copy quote

• When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Truth, Philosopher, Corny

  14 Copy quote

• When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Order, Darkness, Exhausted

  Letter to Farkas Bolyai, September 2, 1808.

  33 Copy quote

• Does the pursuit of truth give you as much pleasure as before? Surely it is not the knowing but the learning, not the possessing but the acquiring, not the being-there but the getting there that afford the greatest satisfaction. If I have exhausted something, I leave it in order to go again into the dark. Thus is that insatiable man so strange: when he has completed a structure it is not in order to dwell in it comfortably, but to start another.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Dark, Men, Order

  47 Copy quote

• In my opinion instruction is very purposeless for such individuals who do no want merely to collect a mass of knowledge, but are mainly interested in exercising (training) their own powers. One doesn't need to grasp such a one by the hand and lead him to the goal, but only from time to time give him suggestions, in order that he may reach it himself in the shortest way.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Education, Exercise, Science

  9 Copy quote

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