Augustus De Morgan on Mathematics
1806–1871 United Kingdom
← All quotes by Augustus De Morgan
3 quotes
The two races which have founded the mathematics, those of the Sanscrit and Greek languages, have been the two which have independently formed systems of logic.
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum,
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on,
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
A Budget of Paradoxes (1850)
We know that mathematicians care no more for logic than logicians for mathematics. The two eyes of exact science are mathematics and logic: the mathematical sect puts out the logical eye, the logical sect puts out the mathematical eye; each believing that it can see better with one eye than with two.