It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Winston ChurchillRead
I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. I saw - as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show - a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the profound realization of mathematical concepts and their complexities, suggesting an epiphany that was ultimately dismissed in a moment of distraction.
In this quote, Winston Churchill shares a moment of deep insight into the nature of mathematics, describing a vision of infinite quantities and their transition between states. However, he humorously notes that this profound understanding was lost to him after dinner, highlighting the fleeting nature of inspiration and the distractions of daily life that can overshadow moments of clarity.
Themes
MathematicsInfinityEpiphanyUnderstandingDistraction
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on mathematics, one might reference this quote to illustrate the deep insights that can occur in the field.
More from Winston Churchill
All quotes →The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lit under it, there's no limit to the power it can generate.
Winston ChurchillRead
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Winston ChurchillRead
I will not pretend that if I had to choose between communism and Nazism I would choose communism.
Winston ChurchillRead
Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.
Winston ChurchillRead
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Winston ChurchillRead
Similar quotes
All matter comes from a primary substance, the luminiferous ether
Nikola TeslaRead
The existence of these patterns [fractals] challenges us to study forms that Euclid leaves aside as being formless, to investigate the morphology of the amorphous. Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, and have increasingly chosen to flee from nature by devising theories unrelated to anything we can see or feel.
Benoit MandelbrotRead
Often the great scientists, by turning the problem around a bit, changed a defect to an asset. For example, many scientists when they found they couldn't do a problem finally began to study why not. They then turned it around the other way and said, "But of course, this is what it is" and got an important result.
Richard HammingRead
It is hard to overstate how valuable it is to have all the incredible tools that are used for human disease to study plants.
Bill GatesRead
If you represent the Earth's lifetime by a single year, say from January when it was made to December, the 21st-century would be a quarter of a second in June - a tiny fraction of the year. But even in this concertinaed cosmic perspective, our century is very, very special: the first when humans can change themselves and their home planet.
Martin ReesRead
But let us remember that we are dealing with infinities and indivisibles both of which transcend our finite understanding, the former on account of their magnitude, the latter because of their smallness.
Galileo GalileiRead