"Mathematics is the language of size, shape and order and that it is an essential part of the equipment of an intelligent citizen to understand this language. If the rules of mathematics are the rules of grammar, there is no stupidity involved when we fail to see that a mathematical truth is obvious. The rules of ordinary grammar are not obvious. They have to be learned. They are not eternal truths. They are conveniences without whose aid truths about the sorts of things in the world cannot be communicated from one person to another."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Lancelot Hogben, Mathematics for the Million (1936).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mathematics
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mathematics
250 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mathematics →
Related Quotes
"[Mathematics is] the science that draws necessary conclusions."
"Over time you will get the wrong answer more times than you get the right answer. That’s not a problem! You’ve learnt…"
"Rather like the way the Hubble Space Telescope has made a significant contribution to astronomy in enabling astronome…"
"Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, …"
"Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the ex…"
"In doing mathematics, I express something personal. It is a source of joy to know that, despite this personal aspect,…"
"It was mathematics, the non-empirical science par excellence, wherein the mind appears to play only with itself, that…"
"Now comes the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen entangled state. Now I see faces, people saying, "Oh..?" Don't worry! When you …"
"If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the…"
"When I have needed solace and I have had to depend on my own resources, the mathematics has been there. I am grateful."