Gauss Quotes

“Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound...

{His second motto, from King Lear byShakespeare}”
― Carl Friedrich Gauss

“Heis like the fox, who effaceshistracks in the sand withhistail.

{Describing the writing style of famous mathematicianCarl Friedrich Gauss}”
― Niels Henrik Abel

“The moral high ground is a lovely place. It won’t stop a missile, though. It won’t alter the trajectory of a gauss round.”
― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

“The importance ofC.F. Gaussfor the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience.”
― Albert Einstein

“The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method—more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records—of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason.”
― Nicholas Murray Butler

“In describing the honourable mission I charged him with, M. Pernety informed me that he made my name known toyou.This leads me to confess that I am not as completely unknown to you as you might believe, but that fearing the ridicule attached to a female scientist, I have previously taken the name of M. LeBlanc in communicating to you those notes that, no doubt, do not deserve the indulgence with which you have responded.

{Explaining her use of a male pseudonym in a letter toCarl Friedrich Gauss,1807}”
― Sophie Germain

“The best thatGausshas given us was likewise an exclusive production. If he had not created his geometry of surfaces, which servedRiemannas a basis, it is scarcely conceivable that anyone else would have discovered it. I do not hesitate to confess that to a certain extent a similar pleasure may be found by absorbing ourselves in questions of pure geometry.”
― Albert Einstein

“For other great mathematicians or philosophers,heused the epithets magnus, or clarus, or clarissimus; forNewtonalone he kept the prefix summus.”
― W.W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics

“The great masters of modern analysis areLagrange,Laplace,andGauss,who were contemporaries. It is interesting to note the marked contrast in their styles.Lagrangeis perfect both in form and matter, he is careful to explain his procedure, and though his arguments are general they are easy to follow.Laplaceon the other hand explains nothing, is indifferent to style, and, if satisfied that his results are correct, is content to leave them either with no proof or with a faulty one.Gaussis as exact and elegant asLagrange,but even more difficult to follow thanLaplace,for he removes every trace of the analysis by which he reached his results, and studies to give a proof which while rigorous shall be as concise and synthetical as possible.”
― W.W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics

“...andhisanalysis provedhimto be the first of theoretical astronomers no less than the greatest of 'arithmeticians.”
― W.W. Rouse Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics

“The mathematical giant [Gauss], who from his lofty heights embraces in one view the stars and the abysses…”
― Farkas Bolyai

“Základní věta algebry se tak nejmenuje náhodou, opravdu základní je. Ve svých pamětech Gauss poznamenal, že při jejím objevu (ako končíci student ve 22 letech)" pocítil mírnou radost ".”
― Milan Mareš, Příběhy matematiky

“[On scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss]

[Carl Friedrich] Gauss told his friend Rudolf Wagner, a professor of biology at Gottingen University, that he did not believe in the Bible but that he had meditated a great deal on the future of the human soul and speculated on the possibility of the soul being reincarnated on another planet. Evidently, Gauss was a Deist with a good deal of skepticism concerning religion.”
― Gerhard Falk, American Judaism in Transition: The Secularization of a Religious Community

“If the theory of numbers could be employed for any practical and obviously honourable purpose, if it could be turned directly to the furtherance of human happiness or the relief of human suffering, as physiology and even chemistry can, then surely neither Gauss nor any other mathematician would have been so foolish as to decry or regret such applications. But science works for evil as well as for good; and both Gauss and lesser mathematicians may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean.”
― G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology

“Replying two weeks later he states his opinion of Fermat’s Last Theorem. “I am very much obliged for your news concerning the Paris prize. But I confess that Fermat’s Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a multitude of such propositions, which one could neither prove nor dispose of.”
― Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics

“He (Gauss) lives everywhere in mathematics”
― Eric Temple Bell, Men of Mathematics