Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.

But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something.

All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance.

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.

The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things.