Everyone knows what a curve is, until he has studied enough mathematics to become confused through the countless number of possible exceptions.

Mathematics in general is fundamentally the science of self-evident things.

It is well known that the central problem of the whole of modern mathematics is the study of transcendental functions defined by differential equations.

Every one who understands the subject will agree that even the basis on which the scientific explanation of nature rests is intelligible only to those who have learned at least the elements of the differential and integral calculus, as well as analytical geometry.

Regarding the fundamental investigations of mathematics, there is no final ending ... no first beginning.

The presentation of mathematics in schools should be psychological and not systematic. The teacher, so to speak, should be a diplomat. He must take account of the psychic processes in the boy in order to grip his interest, and he will succeed only if he presents things in a form intuitively comprehensible. A more abstract presentation is only possible in the upper classes.

The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure.