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[F]inding direct measurement so often impossible, we are compelled to devise means of doing it indirectly. Hence arose Mathematics.

— Auguste Comte The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (1853)

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Mathematics

More quotes by Auguste Comte

Social positivism only accepts duties, for all and towards all. Its constant social viewpoint cannot include any notion of rights, for such notion always rests on individuality.

Le Catéchisme positiviste (1852)

Men are not allowed to think freely about chemistry and biology: why should they be allowed to think freely about political philosophy?

A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991)

There are three successive states of morality answering to the three principal stages of human life; the personal, the domestic, and the social stage.

A General View of Positivism (1848)

To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.

Mathematical Analysis is... the true rational basis of the whole system of our positive knowledge.

System of positive polity (1852)

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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

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