But the gambling reasoner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the circle, what a load of misery would be saved.

The Astronomer's Drinking Song Astronomers! What can avail Those who calumniate us; Experiment can never fail With such an apparatus.

Every science that has thriven has thriven upon its own symbols: logic, the only science which is admitted to have made no improvements in century after century, is the only one which has grown no symbols.

But the gambling reasoner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the circle, what a load of misery would be saved.

The moving power of mathematical invention is not reasoning but imagination.

As to writing another book on geometry [to replace Euclid] the middle ages would have as soon thought of composing another New Testament.

Lagrange, in one of the later years of his life, imagined that he had overcome the difficulty (of the parallel axiom). He went so far as to write a paper, which he took with him to the Institute, and began to read it. But in the first paragraph something struck him that he had not observed: he muttered: 'Il faut que j'y songe encore', and put the paper in his pocket.' [I must think about it again]