George Eliot Quotes

The infinite we shall do right away. The finite may take a little longer.

Aerodynamics is mathematics for those who haven't learned to do calculus. In my case, too, for one who hasn't learned to add or multiply, at least the first time.

To be honest everything goes over my head a bit.

I liked things better when I didn't understand them.

I don’t think anything about Einstein’s theory because I don’t understand it.

Numbers are limits, and perfection doesn't have limits.

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about.

A theme is always necessary, a plain, simple, unadorned theme to confuse the ignorant.

Neither concepts nor mathematical formulae can explain the infinite.

The way is near, but men seek it afar. It is in easy things, but men seek for it in difficult things.

Simplicity, it seems, has always been wasted on those who simply cannot appreciate it

There's nothing wrong with not understanding yourself.

Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things.

If numbers aren't beautiful, I don't know what is.

Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradictions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them?

The less I understood of this farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance.

The minute a thing is long and complicated, it confuses. Whoever wrote the Ten Commandments made 'em short. They may not always be kept, but they are understood.

This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.

I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.

We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality.

In the world we live in, what we know and what we don't know are like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.

His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.

Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite.

Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, “You know math, huh? Tell me something I’ve always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, “The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity’ as if it were a number. It’s not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?’ I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,’ ‘truth,’ ‘beauty’—those are not numbers.

The last thing is simplicity. After having gone through all the difficulties, having played an endless number of notes, it is simplicity that matters, with all its charm. It is the final seal on Art. Anyone who strives for this to begin with will be disappointed. You cannot begin at the end.