M-T Quotes

Mizner, Wilson  (1876-1933)

• When you steal from one author, it's plagiarism; if you steal from many, it's
  research.

Pascal, Blaise (1623-1662)
Pensees. 1670.

• It is not certain that everything is uncertain.
• The more intelligent one is, the more men of originality one finds. Ordinary
  people find no difference between men.

Polyá, George (1887-1985)
In H. Eves Return to Mathematical Circles, Boston: Prindle, Weber and Schmidt,
1988.

• There are many questions which fools can ask that wise men cannot answer.

Roosevelt, Theadore

• It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Rossi, Hugo 
Mathematics Is an Edifice, Not a Toolbox, Notices of the AMS, v. 43, no. 10,
October 1996.

• In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used the third derivative to advance his case for reelection. 

Taropin, Luba 

July 16, 2003:
Now that you have used the broken phone you understand communism. It is broken but it is free. 

(The reference is to a pay phone in Camp Stieky (near Minsk) in Belarus which was broken in such a way that it allowed free phone calls)

Mother Theresa

• If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Tierney, Katherine (Kate) Elizabeth 

May 14, 1998:
Yeah, well I can do over 300 things with a Greek verb!

Twain, Mark 

• It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
• I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell-you see, I have friends in both places.
• If you tell the truth, you do not have to remember anything.
• I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
• The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
• Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.
• We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.
• When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.
• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

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This page was last modified on September 06, 2004.