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It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.

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
Better
Criticize
Good
Intuition
Math
Discover
Logic
Mathematics
Prove
Create

More quotes by Henri Poincare

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But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following.
Henri Poincare
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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 been made.
Henri Poincare
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One geometry cannot be more true than another it can only be more convenient.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
Henri Poincare
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It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places.
Henri Poincare
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One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.
Henri Poincare
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In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind.
Henri Poincare
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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 thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with non-Euclidean geometry.
Henri Poincare
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It is the simple hypotheses of which one must be most wary because these are the ones that have the most chances of passing unnoticed.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare
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Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.
Henri Poincare
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If we wish to foresee the future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present condition of the science.
Henri Poincare
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If we ought not to fear mortal truth, still less should we dread scientific truth. In the first place it can not conflict with ethics? But if science is feared, it is above all because it can give no happiness? Man, then, can not be happy through science but today he can much less be happy without it.
Henri Poincare
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Intuition is more important to discovery than logic.
Henri Poincare
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Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henri Poincare
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Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak.
Henri Poincare
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Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations between objects thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only.
Henri Poincare
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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.
Henri Poincare