Lord Kelvin Quotes

Mathematics is not the rigid and rigidity-producing schema that the layman thinks it is; rather, in it we find ourselves at that meeting point of constraint and freedom that is the very essence of human nature.

The important thing to remember about mathematics is not to be frightened

I don't care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don't have an intuitive feeling for equations.

I've always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing any idea.

For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.

if you do not appreciate the mathematics, you cannot see, among the great variety of facts, that logic permits you to go from one to the other

When I was in school, my favorite subject was math. I took algebra and calculus. At an early age I grasped it and understood it quickly. I just enjoyed breaking the codes and solving problems.

Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.

Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded.

Mathematics is a language plus reasoning. It's like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning.

You don't learn algebra with your blessed soul. Can't you look at it with your clear simple wits?

Mathematics is good for the soul, getting things right enlivens a sense of truth, efforts to understand automatically purify desires.

... mathematics is the science of skillful operations with concepts and rules invented just for this purpose.

By keenly confronting the enigmas that surround us, and by considering and analyzing the observations that I had made, I ended up in the domain of mathematics. Although I am absolutely without training in the exact sciences, I often seem to have more in common with mathematicians than with my fellow artists.

Mathematics is distinguished from all other sciences except only ethics, in standing in no need of ethics.

The advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil.

Another characteristic of mathematical thought is that it can have no success where it cannot generalize.

Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which we may call intuition and ingenuity. The activity of the intuition consists in making spontaneous judgements which are not the result of conscious trains of reasoning. The exercise of ingenuity in mathematics consists in aiding the intuition through suitable arrangements of propositions, and perhaps geometrical figures or drawings.

Mathematics is not just a language. Mathematics is a language plus reasoning.

Arithmetic! Algebra! Geometry! Grandiose trinity! Luminous triangle! Whoever has not known you is without sense!

I am not a mathematician, but I was aware that for centuries, mathematics was considered the queen of the sciences because it claimed certainty. It was grounded on some fundamental certainties - axioms - that led to others.

Math is my favorite subject. It's the universal language. I like the fact that wherever you go in the whole world, two plus two will still be four.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.