When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

His second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound.

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

No contradictions will arise as long as Finite Man does not mistake the infinite for something fixed, as long as he is not led by an acquired habit of mind to regard the infinite as something bounded.

By explanation the scientist understands nothing except the reduction to the least and simplest basic laws possible, beyond which he cannot go, but must plainly demand them; from them however he deduces the phenomena absolutely completely as necessary.

...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.

The total number of Dirichlet's publications is not large: jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale.