We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
To praise it would amount to praising myself. For the entire content of the work... coincides almost exactly with my own meditations which have occupied my mind for the past thirty or thirty-five years.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the deep connection between the author's work and their personal thoughts and experiences.
Carl Friedrich Gauss expresses a profound relationship between his work and his inner contemplations. He suggests that to praise his work is, in essence, to praise himself, as the ideas he presents are a direct reflection of his long-standing meditations over several decades. This highlights the significance of personal experience and introspection in the creation of knowledge and art.
Themes
WorkMeditationsSelfPraiseWisdomExperience
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the importance of personal reflection in academic work, this quote underscores the connection between the author's thoughts and their output.
More from Carl Friedrich Gauss
All quotes →I protest against the use of infinite magnitude ..., which is never permissible in mathematics.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
Mathematics is the queen of sciences and number theory is the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations she is entitled to the first rank.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic.
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Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
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