Inspired by Terence Tao's website.

Mathematics, Science, & Problem-Solving

• John von Neumann
  • If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
  • In mathematics, you don't understand things. You just get used to them.
  • Truth... is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.
• All models are wrong, but some are useful. - George Box
• Albert Einstein
  • Insofar as theories of mathematics speak about reality, they are not certain, and insofar as they are certain, they do not speak about reality.
  • I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern, when all of a sudden, a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.
  • [I do not] carry such information [the speed of sound] in my mind since it is readily available in books... The value of... education is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think.
• Richard Feynman
  • It is not unscientific to make a guess, although many people who are not in science think it is.
  • I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
  • If you want to master something, teach it.
• The art of asking questions is more valuable than solving problems. - Georg Cantor

The Human Condition

• If you're tired of starting over, stop giving up. - Shia LaBeouf
• Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor Frankl
• Rejection is redirection.
• And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world. - Talmud
• Mahatma Gandhi
  • You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
  • Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
  • The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of strong.
  • It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
• Even statues crack, and when you fall, no one will dare to catch you.
• I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to this older fish and says, "I'm trying to find this thing they call the ocean." "The ocean?" says the older fish. "That's what you're in right now." "This?" says the young fish. "This is water. What I want is the ocean." - Soul

And Above All Else

• A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire