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Among the foundations of the Higher Mathematics is also the 'Idea of a Limit'. The Idea of a Limit cannot be superseded by any other definitions or Hypotheses.

— William Whewell

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Mathematics

More quotes by William Whewell

And so no force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics (1819)

A man really and practically looking onwards to an immortal life, on whatever grounds, exhibits to us the human soul in an enobled attitude.

No force however great can stretch a cord however fine into an horizontal line which is accurately straight.

It is a test of true theories not only to account for but to predict phenomena.

Every failure is a step to success. Every detection of what is false directs us towards what is true: every trial exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so; but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether false; no tempting form of Error is without some latent charm derived from Truth.

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Núria Añó

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Whewell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.