A philosopher is a fool who torments himself while he is alive, to be talked of after he is dead.
Jean le Rond d'AlembertGaming is the destruction of all decorum; the prince forgets at it his dignity, and the lady her modesty.
Jean le Rond d'AlembertTo someone who could grasp the Universe from a unified standpoint the entire creation would appear as a unique truth and necessity.
Jean le Rond d'AlembertThus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reason, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those delicate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this . . . . The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents. . . . Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who most deserves to be placed beside Homer.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert