32 Quotes by Stanislaw Ulam

When I was a boy I felt that the roll of rhyme in poetry was to compel one to find the un-obvious- because of the necessity of finding a word which rhymes. This forces novel associations, and almost guarantees deviations from routine chains or trains of thought. It becomes, paradoxically, a sort of automatic mechanism of originality.

Mathematics is an escape from reality.

It is most important in creative science not to give up. If you are an optimist you will be willing to “try” more than if you are a pessimist.

Knowing what is big and what is small is more important than being able to solve partial differential equations.

I’m an agnostic. Sometimes I muse deeply on the forces that are for me invisible. When I am almost close to the idea of God, I feel immediately estranged by the horrors of this world, which he seems to tolerate...

Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less.

In mathematics, as in physics, so much depends on chance, on a propitious moment.

The infinite we shall do right away. The finite may take a little longer.

In its evolution from a more primitive nervous system, the brain, as an organ with ten or more billion neurons and many more connections between them must have changed and grown as a result of many accidents.