42 Quotes by Eric Temple Bell

Nevertheless, the consuming hunger of the uncritical mind for what it imagines to be certainty or finality impels it to feast upon shadows in the prevailing famine of substance.

Any impatient student of mathematics or science or engineering who is irked by having algebraic symbolism thrust upon him should try to get along without it for a week.

Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth.

Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.

The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future.

The very basis of creative work is irreverence! The very basis of creative work is bold experimentation. There has never been a creator of lasting importance who has not also been an innovator.

Fashion as King is sometimes a very stupid ruler.

Wherever groups disclosed themselves, or could be introduced, simplicity crystallized out of comparative chaos.

The Handmaiden of the Sciences.