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Mathematics ought properly to be a model of logical clarity. In actual fact there are perhaps no scientific works where you will find more wrong expressions, and consequently wrong thoughts, than in mathematical ones.

— Gottlob Frege What is a Function? (1904)

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Mathematics

More quotes by Gottlob Frege

A judgment, for me is not the mere grasping of a thought, but the admission of its truth.

Gottlob Frege (1892)

Every good mathematician is at least half a philosopher, and every good philosopher is at least half a mathematician.

to Frege in: A. A. B. Aspeitia (2000)

Without some affinity in human ideas art would certainly be impossible; but it can never be exactly determined how far the intentions of the poet are realized.

Gottlob Frege (1892)

A philosopher who has no connection to geometry is only half a philosopher, and a mathematician who has no philosophical vein is only half a mathematician.

Since it is only in the context of a proposition that words have any meaning, our problem becomes this: To define the sense of a proposition in which a number-word occurs.

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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: Gottlob Frege (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.