Quotes by Carl Friedrich Gauss

About Carl Friedrich Gauss:

Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, mechanics, electrostatics, astronomy, matrix theory, and optics.
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The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

I am coming more and more to the conviction that the necessity of our geometry cannot be demonstrated, at least neither by, nor for, the human intellect.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

I mean the word proof not in the sense of the lawyers, who set two half proofs equal to a whole one, but in the sense of a mathematician, where half proof = 0, and it is demanded for proof that every doubt becomes impossible.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

{ } I believe you are more believing in the Bible than I. I am not.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

I confess that 's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, for a multitude of such theorems can easily be set up, which one could neither prove nor disprove. But I have been stimulated by it to bring our again several old i...

Carl Friedrich Gauss

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not the possession of but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

There have been only three epoch-making mathematicians, , , and .

Carl Friedrich Gauss

As is well known the principle of virtual velocities transforms all statics into a mathematical assignment, and by 's principle for dynamics, the latter is again reduced to statics. Although it is is very much in order that in gradual training of sci...

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound... { }

Carl Friedrich Gauss

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Author Bio

  • NameCarl Friedrich Gauss
  • DescriptionGerman mathematician and physical scientist
  • AliasesGauss; Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss; Karl Gauss; C. F. Gauss
  • BornApril 30, 1777
  • DiedFebruary 23, 1855
  • CountryHoly Roman Empire; Confederation Of The Rhine; German Confederation
  • ProfessionMathematician; Geophysicist; Astronomer; Science Writer; Physicist; Geodesist
  • AwardsOrder Of Merit For Arts And Science; Fellow Of The Royal Society; Copley Medal