Time and again in the history of mathematics, paradoxes have arisen because fundamental notions were not divorced from their origins in the physical world.

— Richard J. Trudeau, Introduction to Graph Theory

…what is real freedom to Hegel? “It must further be understood that all the worth which the human being possesses—all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State.” … The consequence of this, morally, is that the individual is of less significance than the state. The individual’s empirical, day-to-day interests are of a lower moral order than the state’s universal, world-historical interests. … “this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the state.” … “One must worship the state as a terrestrial divinity.”

— Stephen R. C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism

While I see her unusual talent for critical introspection, I think her talent is more easily overlooked than the mathematical creativity and intuition exhibited by some of our majors. She has these talents too, but humility and an ability to recognize what you don’t know can silence these talents in the group setting.

— Francis Su, Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Leibniz died in 1716 at the age of seventy, almost completely forgotten. Only his secretary attended his funeral.

— E, Eli Maor

“T. S. Eliot wrote almost a century ago about a phenomenon that he believed to be the product of the nineteenth century: “When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for anyone to know whether he knows what he is talking about or not.”

— How to Think, Alan Jacobs