If I had inherited a fortune I should probably not have cast my lot with mathematics.
Joseph-Louis LagrangeThe reader will find no figures in this work. The methods which I set forth do not require either constructions or geometrical or mechanical reasonings: but only algebraic operations, subject to a regular and uniform rule of procedure.
Joseph-Louis LagrangeIt has cost them but a moment to cut off that head; but a hundred years will not be sufficient to produce another like it.
Joseph-Louis LagrangeI regarded as quite useless the reading of large treatises of pure analysis: too large a number of methods pass at once before the eyes. It is in the works of application that one must study them; one judges their utility there and appraises the manner of making use of them.
Joseph-Louis Lagrange