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Theorems often tell us complex truths about the simple things, but only rarely tell us simple truths about the complex ones. To believe otherwise is wishful thinking or "mathematics envy."

— Marvin Minsky Music, Mind, and Meaning (1981)

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Mathematics

More quotes by Marvin Minsky

It's harmful, when naming leads the mind to think that names alone bring meaning close.

The Society of Mind (1987)

Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.

The "laws of thought" depend not only on the property of brain cells, but also on how they are connected.

The Society of Mind (1987)

There is no reason to suppose that any of these virtues carry over to the many-layered version.

Perceptrons (1988)

Every smart person wants to be corrected, not admired.

All Marvin Minsky quotes →

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