Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
I am ill at these numbers.
Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950)
Tyndall declared that he saw in Matter the promise and potency of all forms of life, and with his Irish graphic lucidity made a picture of a world of magnetic atoms, each atom with a positive and a negative pole, arranging itself by attraction and repulsion in orderly crystalline structure. Such a picture is dangerously fascinating to thinkers oppressed by the bloody disorders of the living world. Craving for purer subjects of thought, they find in the contemplation of crystals and magnets a happiness more dramatic and less childish than the happiness found by mathematicians in abstract numbers, because they see in the crystals beauty and movement without the corrupting appetites of fleshly vitality.
Preface to Back to Methuselah.
Shaw, J. B.
The mathematician is
fascinated with the
marvelous beauty of
the forms he
constructs, and in
their beauty he
finds everlasting
truth.
In N. Rose,
Mathematical Maxims
and Minims, Raleigh
NC: Rome Press Inc.,
1988.
Simmons, G. F.
Mathematical rigor is like clothing; in its style it ought to suit the occasion, and it diminishes comfort and restrains freedom of movement if it is either too loose or too tight.
In The Mathematical Intelligencer, v. 13, no. 1, Winter 1991.
Slaught, H.E.
[E.H.] Moore was
presenting a paper
on a highly
technical topic to a
large gathering of
faculty and graduate
students from all
parts of the
country. When half
way through he
discovered what
seemed to be an
error (though
probably no one else
in the room observed
it). He stopped and
re-examined the
doubtful step for
several minutes and
then, convinced of
the error, he
abruptly dismissed
the meeting -- to
the astonishment of
most of the
audience. It was an
evidence of
intellectual courage
as well as honesty
and doubtless won
for him the supreme
admiration of every
person in the group
-- an admiration
which was in no wise
diminished, but
rather increased,
when at a later
meeting he announced
that after all he
had been able to
prove the step to be
correct.
The American
Mathematical
Monthly, 40 (1933),
191-195.
Smith, Adam
I have no faith in political arithmetic.
Smith, David Eugene
One merit of
mathematics few will
deny: it says more
in fewer words than
any other science.
The formula,
e^(i*pi) =
-1 expressed a world
of thought, of
truth, of poetry,
and of the religious
spirit "God
eternally
geometrizes."
In N. Rose,
Mathematical Maxims
and Minims, Raleigh
NC: Rome Press Inc.,
1988.
Smith, Henry John Stephen (1826 - 1883)
[His toast:]
Pure mathematics,
may it never be of
any use to anyone.
In H. Eves,
Mathematical Circles
Squared, Boston:
Prindle, Weber and
Schmidt, 1972.