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

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.

I have the vagary of taking a lively interest in mathematical subjects only where I may anticipate ingenious association of ideas and results recommending themselves by elegance or generality.

When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.

Mathematics is the queen of science, and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.

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

With a thousand joys I would accept a nonacademic job for which industriousness, accuracy, loyalty, and such are sufficient without specialized knowledge, and which would give a comfortable living and sufficient leisure, in order to sacrifice to my gods [mathematical research]. For example, I hope to get the editting of the census, the birth and death lists in local districts, not as a job, but for my pleasure and satisfaction.