"Abstract enquiries into the most puzzling problems did not arise in the brain of Archimedes as a spontaneous and hitherto untouched subject, but rather as a reflection of prior enquiries in the same direction and by men separated from his days by as long a period — and far longer — than the one which separates you from the great Syracusian."

"Archimedes said, “Give to me a fulcrum on which to plant my lever, and I will move the world.” And I say, give to woman the ballot, the political fulcrum, on which to plant her moral lever, and she will lift the world into a nobler purer atmosphere."

"When Jove looked down and saw the heavens figured in a sphere of glass he laughed and said to the other gods: "Has the power of mortal effort gone so far? Is my handiwork now mimicked in a fragile globe? An old man of Syracuse has imitated on earth the laws of the heavens, the order of nature, and the ordinances of the gods. Some hidden influence within the sphere directs the various courses of the stars and actuates the lifelike mass with definite motions. A false zodiac runs through a year of its own, and a toy moon waxes and wanes month by month. Now bold invention rejoices to make its own heaven revolve and sets the stars in motion by human wit. Why should I take umbrage at harmless and his mock thunder? Here the feeble hand of man has proved Nature's rival.""

"When... the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans.... But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons... that came down with incredible noise and violence... they knocked down those upon whom they fell in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. ...huge poles thrust out from the walls, over the ships, sunk some by the great weights... from on high... others they lifted up into the air by an iron hand or beak like a crane's... and... plunged them to the bottom of the sea; or else the ships, drawn by engines within, and whirled about, were dashed against steep rocks... under the walls, with great destruction of the soldiers... aboard them. A ship was frequently lifted up to a great height in the air... and was rolled to and fro... until the mariners were all thrown out, when at length it was dashed against the rocks, or let fall. At the engine [called Sambuca] that Marcellus brought upon the bridge of ships... while it was as yet approaching the wall, there was discharged a... rock of ten talents [600-700 lb. total] weight, then a second and a third, which, striking upon it with immense force and a noise like thunder, broke all its foundation to pieces... and completely dislodged it from the bridge. So Marcellus... drew off his ships to a safer distance, and sounded a retreat... They then took a resolution of coming up under the walls... in the night; thinking that as Archimedes used ropes stretched at length in playing his engines, the soldiers would now be under the shot, and the darts would... fly over their heads... But he... had... framed... engines accommodated to any distance, and shorter weapons; and... with engines of a shorter range, unexpected blows were inflicted on the assailants. Thus... instantly a shower of darts and other missile weapons was again cast upon them. And when stones came tumbling down... upon their heads, and... the whole wall shot out arrows at them, they retired. ...as they were going off, arrows and darts of a longer range inflicted a great slaughter among them, and their ships were driven one against another; while they themselves were not able to retaliate... For Archimedes had provided and fixed most of his engines immediately under the wall; whence the Romans, seeing that indefinite mischief overwhelmed them from no visible means, began to think they were fighting with the gods."

"Shall we not make an end to this fighting against this geometrical Briareus who uses our ships like cups to ladle water from the sea, drives off our sambuca ignominiously with cudgel-blows, and by the multitude of missiles that he hurls at us all at once outdoes the hundred-handed giants of mythology?"

"The centre of gravity of any hemisphere [is on the straight line which] is its axis, and divides the said straight line in such a way that the portion of it adjacent to the surface of the hemisphere has to the remaining portion the ratio which 5 has to 3."

"Any segment of a right-angled conoid (i.e., a paraboloid of revolution) cut off by a plane at right angles to the axis is 1½ times the cone which has the same base and the same axis as the segment"

"The centre of gravity of any cone is [the point which divides its axis so that] the portion [adjacent to the vertex is] triple [of the portion adjacent to the base]."

"The centre of gravity of any cylinder is the point of bisection of the axis."

"First then I will set out the very first theorem which became known to me by means of mechanics, namely that Any segment of a section of a right angled cone (i.e., a parabola) is four-thirds of the triangle which has the same base and equal height, and after this I will give each of the other theorems investigated by the same method. Then at the end of the book I will give the geometrical [proofs of the propositions]..."

"I am persuaded that it [The Method of Mechanical Theorems] will be of no little service to mathematics; for I apprehend that some, either of my contemporaries or of my successors, will, by means of the method when once established, be able to discover other theorems in addition, which have not yet occurred to me."

"I thought fit to... explain in detail in the same book the peculiarity of a certain method, by which it will be possible... to investigate some of the problems in mathematics by means of mechanics. This procedure is... no less useful even for the proof of the theorems themselves; for certain things first became clear to me by a mechanical method, although they had to be demonstrated by geometry afterwards... But it is of course easier, when we have previously acquired, by the method, some knowledge of the questions, to supply the proof than it is to find it without any previous knowledge."

"It follows at once from the last proposition that the centre of gravity of any triangle is at the intersection of the lines drawn from any two angles to the middle points of the opposite sides respectively."

"In any triangle the centre of gravity lies on the straight line joining any angle to the middle point of the opposite side."

"The centre of gravity of a parallelogram is the point of intersection of its diagonals."

"The centre of gravity of any parallelogram lies on the straight line joining the middle points of opposite sides."

"Two magnitudes whether commensurable or incommensurable, balance at distances reciprocally proportional to the magnitudes."

"If two equal weights have not the same centre of gravity, the centre of gravity of both taken together is at the middle point of the line joining their centres of gravity."

"Equal weights at equal distances are in equilibrium and equal weights at unequal distances are not in equilibrium but incline towards the weight which is at the greater distance."

"Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible."

"How many theorems in geometry which have seemed at first impracticable are in time successfully worked out!"

"Noli turbare circulos meos. or Noli tangere circulos meos."