Nora Roberts Quotes

When I was in school, I liked math because all the problems had answers. Everything else seemed very subjective.

And for mathematical science, he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of hellebore.

If you have ever studied geometry, you remember that by a course of reasoning Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles. Euclid has shown you how to work it out. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, and to show that it is erroneous, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar?

Gradually, at various points in our childhoods, we discover different forms of conviction. There's the rock-hard certainty of personal experience ("I put my finger in the fire and it hurt,"), which is probably the earliest kind we learn. Then there's the logically convincing, which we probably come to first through maths, in the context of Pythagoras's theorem or something similar, and which, if we first encounter it at exactly the right moment, bursts on our minds like sunrise with the whole universe playing a great chord of C Major.

But twice-two-makes-four is for all that a most insupportable thing. Twice-two-makes-four is, in my humble opinion, nothing but a piece of impudence. Twice-two-makes-four is a farcical, dressed-up fellow who stands across your path with arms akimbo and spits at you.

Arithmetic is where the content lies, and not logic; but logic prompts certainty, and not arithmetic.

Mathematics is not only real, but it is the only reality.

One of the nice things about math and science is it’s obvious, you get the answer or you don’t get the answer.

Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.

You can't criticize geometry. It's never wrong.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

It would be very discouraging if somewhere down the line you could ask a computer if the Riemann hypothesis is correct and it said, 'Yes, it is true, but you won't be able to understand the proof.'

No matter how correct a mathematical theorem may appear to be, one ought never to be satisfied that there was not something imperfect about it until it also gives the impression of being beautiful.

I maintain that two and two would continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.

A mathematical theorem can be true whether or not it is realized in the world.

In math, you're either right or you're wrong.

I'm a max player. Don't get mad at me because I'm telling you what's real. One plus one is two, all day long, and it's never gonna change. And that's factorial.

Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.

That sometimes clear ... and sometimes vague stuff ... which is ... mathematics.

Feelings are not everything! There is very little absolute truth in life.

Math is the only place where truth and beauty mean the same thing.

Mathematics has the completely false reputation of yielding infallible conclusions. Its infallibility is nothing but identity. Two times two is not four, but it is just two times two, and that is what we call four for short. But four is nothing new at all. And thus it goes on and on in its conclusions, except that in the higher formulas the identity fades out of sight.