Math Theorem Quotes & Sayings

Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel. — Johannes Kepler

The elegance of a mathematical theorem is directly proportional to the number of independent ideas one can see in the theorem and inversely proportional to the effort it takes to see them. — George Polya

I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind.
(Recalling the degree of focus and determination that eventually yielded the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.) — Andrew John Wiles

It is a curious truth and yet a truth forced upon us by daily observation that it is not the women who have suffered most who are the unhappy women. A state of permanent unhappiness not the morbid, half-cherished melancholy of youth, which generally wears off with wiser years, but that settled, incurable discontent and dissatisfaction with all things and all people, which we see in some women, is, with very rare exceptions, at once the index and the exponent of a thoroughly selfish character. — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure. — David Hilbert

How can you shorten the subject? That stern struggle with the multiplication table, for many people not yet ended in victory, how can you make it less? Square root, as obdurate as a hardwood stump in a pasturenothing but years of effort can extract it. You can't hurry the process. Or pass from arithmetic to algebra; you can't shoulder your way past quadratic equations or ripple through the binomial theorem. Instead, the other way; your feet are impeded in the tangled growth, your pace slackens, you sink and fall somewhere near the binomial theorem with the calculus in sight on the horizon. — Stephen Leacock

Leave everything you do, every place you go, everything you touch a little better for your having been there. — Julie Andrews

Here are the basic principles of Constructivism as practiced by Kronecker and codified by J.H. Poincare and L.E.J. Brouwer and other major figures in Intuitionism: (1) Any mathematical statement or theorem that is more complicated or abstract than plain old integer-style arithmetic must be explicitly derived (i.e. 'constructed') from integer arithmetic via a finite number of purely deductive steps. (2) The only valid proofs in math are constructive ones, with the adjective here meaning that the proof provides a method for finding (i.e., 'constructing') whatever mathematical entities it's concerned with. — David Foster Wallace

Gradually, at various points in our childhoods, we discover different forms of conviction. There's the rock-hard certainty of personal experience ("I put my finger in the fire and it hurt,"), which is probably the earliest kind we learn. Then there's the logically convincing, which we probably come to first through maths, in the context of Pythagoras's theorem or something similar, and which, if we first encounter it at exactly the right moment, bursts on our minds like sunrise with the whole universe playing a great chord of C Major. — Philip Pullman

It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem. — Mark Kac

If market pricing is the only legitimate test of quality, why are we still bothering with proven theorems? Why don't we just have a vote on whether a theorem is true? To make it better we'll have everyone vote on it, especially the hundreds of millions of people who don't understand the math. Would that satisfy you? — Jaron Lanier

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons. — Pythagoras

Rachel bit her lip. I hope you're right. I'm a little worried. What if someone asks what's on the next math test and I start spouting a prophecy in the middle of geometry class? The Pythagorean theorem shall be problem two ... Gods, that would be embarrassing. — Rick Riordan

You'll often see posts about people beating the CAP theorem. They haven't. What they have done is create a system where some capabilities are CP, and some are AP. The mathematical proof behind the CAP theorem holds. Despite many attempts at school, I've learned that you don't beat math. — Sam Newman

The desert sharpened the sweet ache of his longing, amplified it, gave shape to it in sere geology and clean slant of light. — Jon Krakauer

Smokers do not smoke because they enjoy it. They do it because they are miserable without it. — Allen Carr

As you get the rhythm you discern how to win. — Miyamoto Musashi

Although I've played a wide variety of roles, I've never had the chance to act in a story written specially for me. It's a pity as they are the only stories that really let you reveal your personality. — Grace Kelly

This skipping is another important point. It should be done whenever a proof seems too hard or whenever a theorem or a whole paragraph does not appeal to the reader. In most cases he will be able to go on and later he may return to the parts which he skipped. — Emil Artin

I smiled. Mom laughed, shaking her head. "That's the punchline? Why is that even funny?" "It's the Pythagorean theorem," said Lauren. "It's a math formula for . . . something." "Right triangles," I said, and looked pointedly at Margaret. "I told you I'd already done geometry. — Dan Wells

I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all about one particular problem - Fermat's Last Theorem. — Andrew Wiles

Some mathematics problems look simple, and you try them for a year or so, and then you try them for a hundred years, and it turns out that they're extremely hard to solve. There's no reason why these problems shouldn't be easy, and yet they turn out to be extremely intricate. [Fermat's] Last Theorem is the most beautiful example of this. — Andrew John Wiles