Henri Poincare Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
  [As opposed to the quotation: Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing].

  Henri Poincare

  Art, Math, Names

  18 Copy quote

• It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Differences, Finals

  7 Copy quote

• Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities?

  Henri Poincare

  Writing, Science, Numbers

  "The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare".

  17 Copy quote

• Often when works at a hard question, nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. Then one takes a rest, long or short, and sits down anew to the work. During the first half-hour, as before, nothing is found, and then all of a sudden the decisive idea presents itself to the mind.

  Henri Poincare

  Ideas, Long, Mind

  11 Copy quote

• Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science issue.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Issues, Logic

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.339, Modern Library

  16 Copy quote

• All of mathematics is a tale about groups.

  Henri Poincare

  Groups, Mathematics, Tales

  9 Copy quote

• It is often said that experiments should be made without preconceived ideas. That is impossible. Not only would it make every experiment fruitless, but even if we wished to do so, it could not be done. Every man has his own conception of the world, and this he cannot so easily lay aside. We must, example, use language, and our language is necessarily steeped in preconceived ideas. Only they are unconscious preconceived ideas, which are a thousand times the most dangerous of all.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Men, Ideas

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.192, Modern Library

  26 Copy quote

• Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think

  Henri Poincare

  Spiritual, Believe, Thinking

  5 Copy quote

• One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient.

  Henri Poincare

  Mathematics, Geometry, Convenient

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.85, Modern Library

  27 Copy quote

• One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

  Henri Poincare

  Doe, Theory, Convenient

  12 Copy quote

• Mathematicians do not study objects, but the relations between objects.

  Henri Poincare

  Study, Relation, Mathematician

  "The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare".

  15 Copy quote

• The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure intelligence can grasp.

  Henri Poincare

  Life, Beautiful, Nature

  "Science and Method". Book by Henri Poincaré, translated by Francis Maitland. Part I, Chapter 1: "The Selection of Facts", p. 22, 1914.

  13 Copy quote

• A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter.

  Henri Poincare

  Errors, Produce, Latter

  11 Copy quote

• Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Technology, Numbers

  Science et Methode ch. 1 (1908)

  11 Copy quote

• A first fact should surprise us, or rather would surprise us if we were not used to it. How does it happen there are people who do not understand mathematics? If mathematics invokes only the rules of logic, such as are accepted by all normal minds...how does it come about that so many persons are here refractory?

  Henri Poincare

  People, Mind, Ontology

  5 Copy quote

• Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

  Henri Poincare

  Science, Night, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.

  Henri Poincare

  Creativity, Math, Mind

  17 Copy quote

• Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means.

  Henri Poincare

  Mean, Understood, Knows

  4 Copy quote

• We also know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether delusion is not more consoling.

  Henri Poincare

  Truth, Often Is, Wonder

  4 Copy quote

• Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.

  Henri Poincare

  Nature, Philosophical, Science

  20 Copy quote

• Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand; .... It shows us how small is man's body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony.

  Henri Poincare

  Men, Mind, Body

  Henri Poincare (2012). “The Value of Science: Essential Writings of Henri Poincare”, p.473, Modern Library

  11 Copy quote

• Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.

  Henri Poincare

  Math, Discovery, Preparation

  8 Copy quote

• All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance.

  Henri Poincare

  Two, Progress, Together

  12 Copy quote

• Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further.

  Henri Poincare

  Data, Simplicity

  20 Copy quote

• All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thoughts, and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning.

  Henri Poincare

  Thinking, Use, Affirmation

  "The Value of Science". Book by Henri Poincaré, translated by George Bruce Halsted. Chapter 11: "Science and Reality", 1907.

  11 Copy quote

Page 2 of 5

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin