It Has Never Been In My Power

Kepler's Discovery Would Not Have Been Possible Without The Doctrine Of Conics. Now Contemporaries Of Kepler-such Penetrating Minds As Descartes And Pascal-were Abandoning The Study Of Geometry ... Because They Said It Was So Utterly Useless. There Was The Future Of The Human Race Almost Trembling In The Balance; For Had Not The Geometry Of Conic Sections Already Been Worked Out In Large Measure, And Had Their Opinion That Only Sciences Apparently Useful Ought To Be Pursued, The Nineteenth Century Would Have Had None Of Those Characters Which Distinguish It From The Ancien Régime.

My Language Is The Sum Total Of Myself.

True Science Is Distinctively The Study Of Useless Things. For The Useful Things Will Get Studied Without The Aid Of Scientific Men. To Employ These Rare Minds On Such Work Is Like Running A Steam Engine By Burning Diamonds.

Another Characteristic Of Mathematical Thought Is That It Can Have No Success Where It Cannot Generalize.

In All The Works On Pedagogy That Ever I Read — And They Have Been Many, Big, And Heavy — I Don't Remember That Any One Has Advocated A System Of Teaching By Practical Jokes, Mostly Cruel. That, However, Describes The Method Of Our Great Teacher, Experience.