113 Quotes by Benoit Mandelbrot

I had very, very little training in taking an exam to determine a scientist’s life in France.

The beauty of what I happened by extraordinary chance to put together is that nobody would have believed that this is possible, and certainly I didn’t expect that it was possible. I just moved from step to step to step.

Order doesn’t come by itself.

When people ask me what’s my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.

Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time.

I didn’t want to become a pure mathematician, as a matter of fact, my uncle was one, so I knew what the pure mathematician was and I did not want to be a pure – I wanted to do something different.

I didn’t feel comfortable at first with pure mathematics, or as a professor of pure mathematics. I wanted to do a little bit of everything and explore the world.

The techniques I developed for studying turbulence, like weather, also apply to the stock market.

I spent my time very nicely in many ways, but not fully satisfactory. Then I became Professor in France, but realized that I was not – for the job that I should spend my life in.