Cauchy Quotes & Sayings

The definition of a limit is essentially his [Cauchy's] creation and is as much of a miracle as those fantastic Swiss clocks of the period in which hundreds of gleaming cogs are made to celebrate not only the time and date but the phases of the moon. — David Berlinski

I am a Christian which means that I believe in the deity of Christ, like Tycho de Brahe, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, Pascal ... like all great astronomers mathematicians of the past. — Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Men pass away, but their deeds abide. [His last words.] — Augustin-Louis Cauchy

First, it is necessary to study the facts, to multiply the number of observations, and then later to search for formulas that connect them so as thus to discern the particular laws governing a certain class of phenomena. In general, it is not until after these particular laws have been established that one can expect to discover and articulate the more general laws that complete theories by bringing a multitude of apparently very diverse phenomena together under a single governing principle. — Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Cauchy was not interested in the needs of engineers. Cauchy was interested in the truth. — Jordan Ellenberg

A mathematician will recognise Cauchy, Gauss, Jacobi or Helmholtz after reading a few pages, just as musicians recognise, from the first few bars, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert. — Ludwig Boltzmann

As for methods I have sought to give them all the rigour that one requires in geometry, so as never to have recourse to the reasons drawn from the generality of algebra. — Augustin-Louis Cauchy

Residues arise ... naturally in several branches of analysis ... Their consideration provides simple and easy-to-use methods, which are applicable to a large number of diverse questions, and some new results ... — Augustin-Louis Cauchy

[I was advised] to read Jordan's 'Cours d'analyse'; and I shall never forget the astonishment with which I read that remarkable work, the first inspiration for so many mathematicians of my generation, and learnt for the first time as I read it what mathematics really meant. — G.H. Hardy

I shall never flaunt the little learning that I have acquired through the care and help my father has given me. If I have learned anything, it is only because he took care to teach me. Had he not taken upon himself the trouble of instructing me, I would be as ignorant as many other children. — Augustin-Louis Cauchy