My belief is that nothing that can be expressed by mathematics cannot be expressed by careful use of literary words.
Interpretation
Mathematics and literature can both effectively convey complex ideas.
Paul Samuelson's quote emphasizes the idea that the clarity and precision of mathematics can also be mirrored through the careful use of language. It suggests that while mathematics is often seen as a rigid and purely logical field, the ability to articulate concepts through words can equally express complex thoughts, showcasing the power of language and its importance alongside mathematical reasoning.
In practice
During a lecture on the importance of interdisciplinary studies, I could cite this quote to underline how both math and literature convey profound truths.
To a person of analytical ability, perceptive enough to realise that mathematical equipment was a powerful sword in economics, the world of economics was his or her oyster in 1935. The terrain was strewn with beautiful theorems begging to be picked up and arranged in unified order.
I can't think of a president who has been overburdened by a knowledge of economics.
Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear - and what they want to hear is what won't happen.
My family was well off but not rich. I spent the four years I was an undergraduate working on the beach. And it wasn't because I was lazy; it was because my freshman class would go to a hundred different employers and wouldn't get a nibble. That was a disequilibrium system. I realized that the ordinary old-fashioned Euclidean geometry didn't apply.
Economics has never been a science - and it is even less now than a few years ago.
There's nothing in Keynesian economics that would allow you to solve stagflation. But there's nothing in neoclassical economics that would allow you to solve stagflation, either.
These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.
Leisure without literature is death and burial alive.
There are very many people who read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.
For me, I was always the only woman in my cohort, first as a mechanical engineering undergraduate student, then as a chemical engineering graduate student. There were very few women getting degrees in those fields at the time. My role models were men - great men role models.
For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom.
And once we have given our community a good start,' I pointed out, ' the process will be cumulative. By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves and better able to produce still better children in their turn, as can be seen with animals.
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