Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes

Regarding the fundamental investigations of mathematics, there is no final ending ... no first beginning.

The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.

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.

Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for 500 years.

Fractions, decimals, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, mechanics - these are the steps up the mountain side. How high is one going to get? For me, the pinnacle was Projective Geometry. Who today has even heard of this branch of mathematics?

The study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation.

In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.

When I started in the theater, the joy for me was playing different parts, and I get set alight by different people and different worlds. The biggest joy for me is jumping around and going from that to this to that, never feeling that I'm any one thing - because I'm not, and we as people aren't.

Every role presents a new opportunity for me to do something different and to explore something different.

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

If you have the opportunity to try different things, you should try different things and step outside your comfort zone and see what works and what doesn't work.

Science is the Differential Calculus of the mind. Art the Integral Calculus; they may be beautiful when apart, but are greatest only when combined.

For me, something that's been always really important to me, that's also really served me well in hindsight, is doing different things, trying to cross different genres, and dipping my toes into comedy and drama and action here and there. Fortunately, as I've been working, the industry has also changed where you're able to dip your toes into different mediums, where it's not just independent film and studio film, but now you've got TV, and you're able to do all these different things. For me, it's just a matter of continually pushing myself and challenging myself.

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.

You have this world of mathematics, which is very real and which contains all kinds of wonderful stuff. And then we also have the world of nature, which is real, too.

The reason I shift gears constantly, why I'm doing an opera, why I've done essays, why I've written poetry for years that nobody wanted, why I do short stories and novels and screenplays... is so I will have new ways of failing. This means becoming a student again.

Ironically, in a changing world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things you can do.

Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.

The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffeehouses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank.

First sentences are doors to worlds.

I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later.

Thank you to the world for being a wild and inspiring place, full of odd creatures, strange people, and mysterious cities. I hope by and by to know you better.

Never stop learning and adapting. The world will always be changing. If you limit yourself to what you knew and what you were comfortable with earlier in your life, you will grow increasingly frustrated with your surroundings as you age.

He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents.

The wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.