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A (38) B (44) C (35) D (64) E (53) F (14) G (42) H (79) I (3) J (22) K (29) L (47) M (29) N (18) O (4) P (89) Q (1) R (37) S (40) T (16) U (1) V (8) W (63) Y (1) Z (1)
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
In N. Rose, Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC: Rome Press Inc., 1988.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves.
J. Koenderink, Solid Shape, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
[About him:]
It is rare to find learned men who are clean, do not stink and have a sense of humour.
[Attributed variously to Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu and to the Duchess of Orleans]
Lehrer, Thomas Andrew (1928- )
In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize, only be sure always to call it please research.
Lobachevski (a humorous and satirical song)
Lebesgue, Henri (1875 - 1941)
In my opinion, a mathematician, in so far as he is a mathematician, need not preoccupy himself with philosophy -- an opinion, moreover, which has been expressed by many philosophers.
Scientific American, September 1964, p. 129.
Leacock, Stephen
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 pasture; nothing 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. So died, for each of us, still bravely fighting, our mathematical training; except for a set of people called "mathematicians" -- born so, like crooks.
In H. Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt, 1988.
Leach, Edmund Ronald (1910 - 1989)
How can a modern anthropologist embark upon a generalization with any hope of arriving at a satisfactory conclusion? By thinking of the organizational ideas that are present in any society as a mathematical pattern.
Rethinking Anthropology, 1961.
Lao Tze (604-531 B.C.)
A good calculator does not need artificial aids.
Tao Te Ching, Ch. 27
Langer, Rudoph E.
[About Fourier:] It was, no doubt, partially because of his very disregard for rigor that he was able to take conceptual steps which were inherently impossible to men of more critical genius.
In P. Davis and R. Hersh, The Mathematical Experience, Boston: Birkhauser, 1981.
Landau, Susan
There's a touch of the priesthood in the academic world, a sense that a scholar should not be distracted by the mundane tasks of day-to-day living. I used to have great stretches of time to work. Now I have research thoughts while making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Sure it's impossible to write down ideas while reading "Curious George" to a two-year-old. On the other hand, as my husband was leaving graduate school for his first job, his thesis advisor told him, "You may wonder how a professor gets any research done when one has to teach, advise students, serve on committees, referee papers, write letters of recommendation, interview prospective faculty. Well, I take long showers."
In Her Own Words: Six Mathematicians Comment on Their Lives and Careers. Notices of the AMS, v. 38, no. 7 (September 1991), p. 704.

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