71 Quotes by 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.

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.

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...geometry should be ranked, not with arithmetic, which is purely aprioristic, but with mechanics.

The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it.

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.

Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.

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

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.

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.