Paul Rand Quotes

Irrefragability, thy name is mathematics.

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

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.

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

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.

What's important is that twice two is four and all the rest's nonsense.

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

The truth shall set you free. When you hear the truth, it sets you free. So mathematics is truth. It adds up. There's no error. Only time there's an error is when man miscalculates his own problems or his own equations.

Mathematics is the only good metaphysics.

We cannot ... prove geometrical truths by arithmetic.

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

There are no sects in geometry.

Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.

No! on Human Rights and Freedom, on a subject that is as self-evident as that two and two make four, there is no need of any written authority.

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.

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

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.

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?

We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain ; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.

I believe only in the mathematics.

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

I want to represent possibilities. I want to represent magic, right, that you're in a universe, and two plus two equals four.

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.