Skip to content

The domain, over which the language of analysis extends its sway, is, indeed, relatively limited, but within this domain it so infinitely excels ordinary language that its attempt to follow the former must be given up after a few steps. The mathematician, who knows how to think in this marvelously condensed language, is as different from the mechanical computer as heaven from earth.

— Alfred Pringsheim Memorabilia Mathematica (1914)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

p. 197, no. 1211

More quotes by Alfred Pringsheim

Mathematical knowledge is the only [knowledge] of which our otherwise omniscient journalism has not yet possessed itself.

It may be asserted without exaggeration that the domain of mathematical knowledge is the only one of which our otherwise omniscient journalism has not yet possessed itself.

Memorabilia Mathematica (1914)

I have come to the conclusion that the exertion, without which a knowledge of mathematics cannot be acquired, is not materially increased by logical rigor in the method of instruction.

Memorabilia Mathematica (1914)

The true mathematician is always a good deal of an artist, an architect, yes, of a poet. Beyond the real world, though perceptibly connected with it, mathematicians have intellectually created an ideal world, which they attempt to develop into the most perfect of all worlds, and which is being explored in every direction. None has the faintest conception of this world, except he who knows it.

Memorabilia Mathematica (1914)

If in Germany the goddess Justitia had not the unfortunate habit of depositing the ministerial portfolios only in the cradles of her own progeny, who knows how many a German mathematician might not also have made an excellent minister.

Memorabilia Mathematica (1914)

All Alfred Pringsheim quotes →

Attribution

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