"When genius... explodes suddenly, at the beginning and not at the end of life, or when we are at a loss to explain its... genesis, we can but feel that we are in the sacred presence of something vastly superior to talent. ...[I]t is not necessary to introduce any mystical idea, but it is one's duty to acknowledge the mystery. ...Galois' fateful existence helps one to understand Lowell's saying: "Talent is that which is in a man's power, genius is that in whose power man is." If Galois had been simply a mathematician of considerable ability, his life would have been far less tragic, for he could have used his mathematical talent for his own advancement and happiness; instead... the furor of mathematics—as one of his teachers said—possessed him and he had no alternative but absolute surrender to his destiny."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ref: James Russell Lowell, "Rousseau and the Sentimentalists" (1870) Among My Books (First Series) p. 356.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/%C3%89variste_Galois
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Évariste Galois
83 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Évariste Galois →
Related Quotes
"... un auteur ne nuit jamais tant à ses lecteurs que quand il dissimule une difficulté."
"Ne pleure pas, Alfred ! J'ai besoin de tout mon courage pour mourir à vingt ans !"
"Dès le commencement de ce siècle, l'algorithme avait atteint un degré de complication tel que tout progrès était deve…"
"Preserve my memory, since fate has not given me life enough for the country to know my name."
"[This] science is the work of the human mind, which is destined rather to study than to know, to seek the truth rathe…"
"Mais je n’ai pas le temps et mes idées ne sont pas encore bien développées sur ce terrain qui est immense. [But I don…"
"Il parait après cela qu'il n'y a aucun fruit à tirer de la solution que nous proposons. [It seems there is no fruit t…"
"Poisson, reading Galois' First Memoir, found the proof of Lemma III insufficient, and wrote in pencil the following c…"
"La démonstration de ce lemme n’est pas suffisante; mais il est vrai d’après le No . 100 du mémoire de Lagrange, Berli…"
"How to console oneself for having exhausted in one month the greatest source of happiness which is in man — of having…"