“ It is the glory of science to be of no use…[its true aim]… is to honor of the human spirit ”
“Truth and Clarity are Complementary”
“ I have finished a monument more lasting than bronze and higher than the royal structure of the pyramid ”
“ Applied mathematics is the bridge connecting pure mathematics with science and technology ”
“In truth mathematics can be called the Pleasure Garden of the myriad forms, the Erudite Ocean of Hundred Schools of Philosophy”
“Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity”
“Since all models are wrong the scientist cannot obtain a “correct” one by excessive elaboration. On the contrary following William of Occam he should seek an economical description of natural phenomena”
“ ..ten thousand years from now there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of electrodynamics ”
“ The simplicities of natural laws come through the complexities of the language we use for their expression ”
“ We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature. We have found a strange foot–print on the shores of the unknown ”
“ Reason is, and ought to be the slave of the passions ”
“Every problem in the calculus of variations has a solution, provided the word solution is suitably understood”
“ Applied mathematics is not a definable scientifc field but a human attitude ”
“ The moment will come when the sun will shine only on a planet of free men, knowing only reason as their master ”
“ Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true ”
“ One cannot help having the gut feeling that a real understanding of our universe must somehow involve E_8 [a Lie group comprising a system of 240 vectors in 8–dimensional space]”
“ Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer ”
“ Mathematics is like sexual pleasure, orgasm, only lasting longer ”
“ The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility ”
“ Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler ”