To invent is to discern, to choose.

- Henri Poincare

Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures.

- Henri Poincare

Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never satisfied. But as never means "in no case", I do not see that any progress has b…

- Henri Poincare

A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of …

- Henri Poincare

The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain stages but suppress…

- Henri Poincare

One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient.

- Henri Poincare

Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite natural to pray for rain or fine weather, though th…

- Henri Poincare

I entered an omnibus to go to some place or other. At that moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former t…

- Henri Poincare

For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the sen…

- Henri Poincare