The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length. ... Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.
Carl Friedrich GaussHis second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound.
Carl Friedrich GaussMathematical discoveries, like springtime violets in the woods, have their season which no human can hasten or retard.
Carl Friedrich GaussTo praise it would amount to praising myself. For the entire content of the work... coincides almost exactly with my own meditations which have occupied my mind for the past thirty or thirty-five years.
Carl Friedrich GaussYou have no idea, how much poetry there is in the calculation of a table of logarithms!
Carl Friedrich Gauss[On Sophie Germain] When a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men... succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of [number theory], then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and superior genius.
Carl Friedrich Gauss