Music that paints nothing is only noise.

Thus 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.

I am worn out by the insults and vexations that this work brings down on us.

A philosopher is a fool who torments himself while he is alive, to be talked of after he is dead.

Algebra is generous; she often gives more than is asked of her.

Gaming is the destruction of all decorum; the prince forgets at it his dignity, and the lady her modesty.

The more wit we have, the less satisfied we are with it.