List of Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes

To Such Idle Talk It Might Further Be Added: That Whenever A Certain Exclusive Occupation Is Coupled With Specific Shortcomings, It Is Likewise Almost Certainly Divorced From Certain Other Shortcomings.

...as Our Friend Zach Has Often Noted, In Our Days Those Who Do The Best For Astronomy Are Not The Salaried University Professors, But So-called Dillettanti, Physicians, Jurists, And So Forth.lamenting The Fragmentary Time Left To A Professor Has Remaining After Fulfilling His Teaching Duties.

My Young Friend, I Wish That Science Would Intoxicate You As Much As Our Good Göttingen Beer! Upon Seeing A Student Staggering Down A Street.

I Have The Vagary Of Taking A Lively Interest In Mathematical Subjects Only Where I May Anticipate Ingenious Association Of Ideas And Results Recommending Themselves By Elegance Or Generality.

To Praise It Would Amount To Praising Myself. For The Entire Content Of The Work... Coincides Almost Exactly With My Own Meditations Which Have Occupied My Mind For The Past Thirty Or Thirty-five Years.

To The Distracting Occupations Belong Especially My Lecture Courses Which I Am Holding This Winter For The First Time, And Which Now Cost Much More Of My Time Than I Like. Meanwhile I Hope That The Second Time This Expenditure Of Time Will Be Much Less, Otherwise I Would Never Be Able To Reconcile Myself To It, Even Practical (astronomical) Work Must Give Far More Satisfaction Than If One Brings Up To B A Couple More Mediocre Heads Which Otherwise Would Have Stopped At A.

In The Last Two Months I Have Been Very Busy With My Own Mathematical Speculations, Which Have Cost Me Much Time, Without My Having Reached My Original Goal. Again And Again I Was Enticed By The Frequently Interesting Prospects From One Direction To The Other, Sometimes Even By Will-o'-the-wisps, As Is Not Rare In Mathematic Speculations.

The Problem Of Distinguishing Prime Numbers From Composite Numbers And Of Resolving The Latter Into Their Prime Factors Is Known To Be One Of The Most Important And Useful In Arithmetic. It Has Engaged The Industry And Wisdom Of Ancient And Modern Geometers To Such An Extent That It Would Be Superfluous To Discuss The Problem At Length. ... Further, The Dignity Of The Science Itself Seems To Require That Every Possible Means Be Explored For The Solution Of A Problem So Elegant And So Celebrated.

It May Be True, That Men, Who Are Mere Mathematicians, Have Certain Specific Shortcomings, But That Is Not The Fault Of Mathematics, For It Is Equally True Of Every Other Exclusive Occupation.

As Is Well Known The Principle Of Virtual Velocities Transforms All Statics Into A Mathematical Assignment, And By D'alembert's Principle For Dynamics, The Latter Is Again Reduced To Statics. Although It Is Is Very Much In Order That In Gradual Training Of Science And In The Instruction Of The Individual The Easier Precedes The More Difficult, The Simple Precedes The More Complicated, The Special Precedes The General, Yet The Min, Once It Has Arrived At The Higher Standpoint, Demands The Reverse Process Whereby All Statics Appears Only As A Very Special Case Of Mechanics.

Further, The Dignity Of The Science Itself Seems To Require That Every Possible Means Be Explored For The Solution Of A Problem So Elegant And So Celebrated.

In Mathematics There Are No True Controversies.