...one can hardly deny that mankind has a common store of thoughts which is transmitted from one generation to another.
Gottlob FregeEvery good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.
Gottlob FregeIt is possible, of course, to operate with figures mechanically, just as it is possible to speak like a parrot: but that hardly deserves the names of thought. It only becomes possible at all after the mathematical notation has, as a result of genuine thought, been so developed that it does the thinking for us, so to speak.
Gottlob Frege