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Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think

Henri Poincare

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Henri Poincare
Age: 58 †
Born: 1854
Born: April 29
Died: 1912
Died: July 17
Astronomer
Engineer
Mathematician
Philosopher
Philosopher Of Science
Physicist
Researcher
Topologist
University Teacher
Le Cateau
Jules Henri Poincaré
Poincaré
Henri Poincare
Jules Henri Poincare
Poincare
Doubt
Spiritual
Two
Doubting
Everything
Convenient
Believe
Guard
Think
Believing
Thinking
Equally
Solutions

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that it is one that can be understood by the pupils.
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Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.
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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
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Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities?
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All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance.
Henri Poincare
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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 they would consider it ridiculous to ask for an eclipse by prayer.
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It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
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Logic sometimes makes monsters. For half a century we have seen a mass of bizarre functions which appear to be forced to resemble as little as possible honest functions which serve some purpose.
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Ideas rose in clouds I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.
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But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something.
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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
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The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
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What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
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Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose.
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In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. Now, they invent them deliberately just to invalidate our ancestors' reasoning, and that is all they are ever going to get out of them.
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A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external as that, even if it existed, would be forever inaccessible to us.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious.
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Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered.
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When the physicists ask us for the solution of a problem, it is not drudgery that they impose on us, on the contrary, it is us who owe them thanks.
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Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new it alone can give us certainty.
Henri Poincare