Pythagorean 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 outsiders stood always in awe in front of what they had surnamed the Celestial City with Mighty Walls. The great mystery that cloaked its very foundations kept impelling the youth of Crotona, as well as those of the adjacent cities, to seek admittance. In spite of the difficult rules of the Master, curiosity goaded many to venture inside its secrecy, with a passionate aspiration to discover the unknown. Yet, to enroll, young men and women should be introduced by their parents. Sometimes, it was one of the assigned Masters of the Pythagorean Society who assumed the introduction. At the massive wooden gated entrance, one could admire the marble statue of Hermes-Enoch, the father of the spiritual laws. A cubical stone formed its stall where a skillful hand had carved the words: No entry to the vulgar — Karim El Koussa

Scramble Books were written prior to the personal computer. For the most part they were used to supplement text books as a teaching and testing tool. I wrote a scramble book to help students understand the "Pythagorean theorem or Law of Pythagoras." What made these books different from text books was that the answers to questions would lead you to different pages, which in turn would confirm that either your answer was right or it would direct you to another page explaining how to arrive at the correct answer. — Hank Bracker

In the Pythagorean system, thinking about numbers, or doing mathematics, was an inherently masculine task. Mathematics was associated with the gods, and with transcendence from the material world; women, by their nature, were supposedly rooted in this latter, baser realm. — Margaret Wertheim

Error is multiform (for evil is a form of the unlimited, as in the old Pythagorean imagery, and good of the limited), whereas success is possible in one way only (which is why it is easy to fail and difficult to succeed - easy to miss the target and difficult to hit it); so this is another reason why excess and deficiency are a mark of vice, and observance of the mean a mark of virtue: Goodness is simple, badness is manifold. — Aristotle.

It is impossible to decide whether a particular detail of the Pythagorean universe was the work of the master, or filled in by a pupil a remark which equally applies to Leonardo or Michelangelo . But there can be no doubt that the basic features were conceived by a single mind; that Pythagoras of Samos was both the founder of a new religious philosophy, and the founder of Science, as the word is understood today. — Arthur Koestler

There is no answer to the Pythagorean theorem. Well, there is an answer, but by the time you figure it out, I got 40 points, 10 rebounds and then we're planning for the parade. — Shaquille O'Neal

Someone like myself, who claimed to be a real madman, living and organized with a Pythagorean precision ... — Salvador Dali

The Pythagoreans... were fascinated by certain specific ratios, ...The Greeks knew these as the 'golden' proportion and the 'perfect' proportion respectively. They may well have been learned from the Babylonians by Pythagoras himself after having been taken prisoner in Egypt. Ratios lay at the heart of the Pythagorean theory of music. — Graham Flegg

His sense of humor was permanently replaced by the Pythagorean Theorem. — Dima Zales

A similar tradition on the creative power of letters forms the basis of the following midrash on Job 28:11.... This brings us to the text that played so important a part in the development of the golem concept: the Book of Yetsirah or the Book of Creation.... We do not know the exact date of this enigmatic text,.... We can only be sure that it was written by a Jewish Neo-Pythagorean some time between the third and sixth century. — Gershom Scholem

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. — Bertrand Russell

Uh-oh," Moni sang, and nodded her head in Chantal's direction. "I think someone's a wee bit upset with us." She turned and walked a few steps backward.
"Careful," I said. "We're not out of range."
"Have no fear, Super Brain is here." Moni whipped out her calculator, holding it up like a shield.
"What are you going to do, daze her with denominators?"
"Maybe. But first I'm going to pummel her with my Pythagorean theorem. — Charity Tahmaseb

You'll see certain Pythagorean whose belief in communism of property goes to such lengths that they pick up anything lying about unguarded, and make off with it without a qualm of conscience as if it had come to them by law. — Desiderius Erasmus

Finally, the dishonesty in the movement of the publication of a Greek philosophy, becomes very glaring, when we refer to the fact, purposely that by calling the theorem of the Square on the Hypotenuse, the Pythagorean theorem, it has concealed the truth for centuries from the world, who ought to know that the Egyptians taught Pythagoras and the Greeks, what mathematics they knew. — George G. M. James

And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: 'For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek.' — Clement Of Alexandria

The interwoven spheres and vines ran along the bottom. I'd done some research, and I'd found this motif everywhere. These overlapping circles were ancient, tracing back to Pythagorean geometry
geometry, a measure of the world. In more mystical terms, the shape had always evoked tghe place where world overlap: dreaming with waking, death with life, the visible with the unseen. [p. 362] — Kim Edwards

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

When a father inquired about the best method of educating his son in ethical conduct, a Pythagorean replied: Make him a citizen of a state with good laws — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

We therefore find that the triangles and rectangles herein described, enclose a large majority of the temples and cathedrals of the Greek and Gothic masters, for we have seen that the rectangle of the Egyptian triangle is a perfect generative medium, its ratio of five in width to eight in length 'encouraging impressions of contrast between horizontal and vertical lines' or spaces; and the same practically may be said of the Pythagorean triangle — Samuel Colman

There is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on Plato's secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no 'Bible,' nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic - but a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he repudiated - without an Aristophanes! — Friedrich Nietzsche

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

That is why one day I said my game will be like the Pythagorean Theorem - hard to figure out. A lot of people really don't know the Pythagorean Theory. They don't make them like me anymore. They don't want to make them like that anymore. — Shaquille O'Neal

I was a capable boy, intelligent, well-liked, but powerfully afraid. And I felt, vaguely, wordlessly, that for a child to be marked off for such a life, to be forced to live in fear was a great injustice. And what was the source of this fear? What was hiding behind the smoke screen of streets and schools? And what did it mean that number 2 pencils, conjugations without context, Pythagorean theorems, handshakes, and head nods were the difference between life and death, were the curtains drawing down between the world and me? — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I know of nothing that has led me to reflect more on Plato's concealment and sphinx nature than that happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was discovered no 'Bible', nothing Egyptian, Pythagorean, Platonic - but Aristophanes. How could even a Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he had denied - without an Aristophanes! - — Friedrich Nietzsche

This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center." — Plutarch

The word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate sympathetic contemplation" was intellectual, and issued in mathematical knowledge ... To those who have reluctantly learnt a little mathematics in school this may seem strange; but to those who have experienced the intoxicating delight of sudden understanding that mathematics gives, from time to time, to those who love it, the Pythagorean view will seem completely natural. — Bertrand Russell

Diatonic, he heard the word in his head. Chromatic, pentatonic, hexatonic, heptatonic, octatonic, each iteration of the scale opening innumerable possibilities for harmony. He thought about the Pythagorean major third, the Didymus comma, the way the intervals sound out of tune rather than as though they were different notes. This, he thought, was where his brilliance at mathematics bled into his love of music; music was the realm in which his mathematical brain danced. — Ru Freeman

During the first century A.D., Alexandria was a veritable hotbed of mystical activity, a crucible in which Judaic, Mithraic, Zoroastrian, Pythagorean, Hermetic, and neo-Platonic doctrines suffused the air and combined with innumerable others. — Michael Baigent

It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible. — Bertrand Russell

Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings? — Jonathan Haidt

Surely in much talk there cannot choose but be much vanity. Loquacity is the fistula of the mind,
ever-running and almost incurable, let every man, therefore, be a Phocion or Pythagorean, to speak briefly to the point or not at all; let him labor like them of Crete, to show more wit in his discourse than words, and not to pour out of his mouth a flood of the one, when he can hardly wring out of his brains a drop of the other. — Herbert Spencer

Pythagorean thought was dominated by mathematics, but it was also profoundly mystical. — Vanna Bonta

In this world, headwinds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim). — Herman Melville

In any event, Socrates' proof of prenatal immortality is that one of Meno's uneducated slave boys actually comes up with the Pythagorean theorem without ever having studied geometry! Therefore, he must be remembering it. You recall that theorem: in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Huh? We can barely remember that from tenth grade, let alone from before we were born. — Thomas Cathcart

Nobody before the Pythagorean had thought that mathematical relations held the secret of the universe. Twenty-five centuries later, Europe is still blessed and cursed with their heritage. To non-European civilizations, the idea that numbers are the key to both wisdom and power, seems never to have occurred. — Arthur Koestler

Our offense is like the pythagorean theorem: There is no answer! — Shaquille O'Neal

We live in a society where we're not taught how to deal with our weaknesses and frailties as human beings. We're not taught how to speak to our difficulties and challenges. We're taught the Pythagorean theorem and chemistry and biology and history. We're not taught anger management. We're not taught dissolution of fear and how to process shame and guilt. I've never in my life ever used the Pythagorean theorem! — Iyanla Vanzant

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

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. — Herman Melville