Carl Friedrich Gauss

"It is not the man who has the most correct ideas about things that is most to be envied, but he who best understands the practical application of those ideas."

"Genius is patience."

"The dignity of the science demands that every true deduction from well established principles be accepted, even if we cannot yet see its practical application."

"When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again."

"We should not perpetually speak of the usefulness of each thing, but should esteem things in themselves."

"As a man, one is ashamed to make use of the arts of magic, even when they would be of great benefit to the human race."

"The laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics."

"I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill there."

"I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on."

"You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length."

"The attempt to found a new science is almost always made over the heads of and in despite of the flagrant incompetence of the very few who are competent to judge."

"I would rather discover one cause than be the author of a hundred effects."

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact."

"I have had my results for a long time, but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them."

"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas."

"The world is a tragedy to those that feel, but a comedy to those that think."

"Beautiful theorems are the buildings of mathematics, constructed with care and precision."

"I do not count my time by hours. Time has no meaning until we learn to measure our own worth."

"The human mind grows more acute in solitude."

"In the sciences, we are always beginners, always students."

"Complex analysis is the study of transcendental harmony."

"The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."

"If I am anything, it is a mathematician, though perhaps I can claim the title of physicist as well."

"The beauty of mathematical truth lies not in the answer, but in the path of discovery."

"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics; I can assure you that mine are still greater."

"I think it can be shown that the truths of mathematics are eternal and immutable."

"Give me but a firm point on which to stand, and I shall move the earth."

"The greatest architects and engineers have always understood that mathematics is the language of creation."

"My brain is to me a capital investment, which I must maintain in good condition."

"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success."