Motivational quotes are a great way to get excited, get moving, and share your passion. We love math, so our collection focuses on powerful math quotes.

There are so many amazing math mathematicians out there with nuggets of wisdom we can all learn from. Enjoy this curated collection of math quotes, which is updated regularly.

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"You know, I'm not terribly fast at my times tables, because that's not what I think mathematics is about." - Marcus du Sautoy

 

"Being exposed to theory, stimulated by a basic love of concepts and mathematics, was a marvelous experience." - Rudolph A. Marcus

 

"I believe only in the mathematics." - Claudio Ranieri

 

"The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes." - Eric Temple Bell

 

"The power of mathematics is often to change one thing into another, to change geometry into language." - Marcus du Sautoy

 

"The mathematics is not there till we put it there." - Arthur Eddington

 

“The infinite in mathematics is always unruly unless it is properly treated” - James Newman

 

"The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture." - John McLaughlin

 

"I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art." - G. H. Hardy

 

"I like crossing the imaginary boundaries people set up between different fields - it's very refreshing." - Maryam Mirzakhani

 

"If you come from mathematics, as I do, you realize that there are many problems, even classical problems, which cannot be solved by computation alone." - Roger Penrose

 

"An innocent looking problem often gives no hint as to its true nature." - Paul Erdős

 

"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." - Rene Descartes

 

"Statistics is the grammar of science." - Karl Pearson

 

"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about." - John von Neumann

 

"Like what you do, and then you will do your best." - Katherine Johnson

 

“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.” - Leo Tolstoy

 

"That awkward moment when you finish a math problem and your answer isn’t even one of the choices." - Ritu Ghatourey

 

"Data is not information. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom." - Clifford Stoll

 

"Mathematics is the science of patterns, and nature exploits just about every pattern that there is." - Ian Stewart

 

"If there is a 50-50 chance that something can go wrong, then nine times out of 10 it will." - Paul Harvey

 

"Mathematics is the supreme judge; from its decisions there is no appeal." - Tobias Dantzig

 

"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry." - Maria Mitchell

 

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." - Dr Seuss

 

"One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden." - Steven Strogatz

 

"To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe." - Marilyn vos Savant

 

"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment." - Carl Friedrich Gauss

“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.” - Henri Poincaré

 

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.” - Marcus Aurelius

 

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty." - Bertrand Russell 

 

“Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.” - Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

"Doing mathematics should always mean finding patterns and crafting beautiful and meaningful explanations." - Paul Lockhart

 

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

 

"Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost." - W.S. Anglin

 

“If you stop at general math, then you will only make general money.” - Snoop Dogg

 

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." - Albert Einstein

 

"Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers." - Shakuntala Devi

 

“There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world.” – Nikolai Lobachevsky

 

“God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world.” - Paul Dirac

 

"You never fail until you stop trying." - Albert Einstein 

 

"In mathematics, you don’t understand things. You just get used to them." - John von Neumann

 

“I loved logic, math, computer programming. I loved systems and logic approaches. And so I just figured architecture is this perfect combination.” - Maya Lin

 

“The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.” - William James

 

“Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.” - Blaise Pascal

 

"The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers." - Maryam Mirzakhani

 

"You want to know how to rhyme, then learn how to add. It's mathematics." - Mos Def

 

“Geometry existed before creation.” - Plato

 

"Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection." - Richard Courant 

 

“Nothing takes place in the world whose meaning is not that of some maximum or minimum.” - Leonhard Euler

 

"It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein

 

"It's fine to work on any problem, so long as it generates interesting mathematics along the way - even if you don't solve it at the end of the day." - Andrew Wiles

 

“Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency.” - René Descartes

 

“To ask the right question is harder than to answer it.” - Georg Cantor

 

“Mathematics, in general, is fundamentally the science of self-evident things.” - Felix Klein

 

“Logic is the anatomy of thought.” - John Locke

 

"The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself." - Andrew Wiles

 

"But in my opinion, all things in nature occur mathematically." - Rene Descartes

 

"Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense." - William Thomson

 

"Mathematics has beauty and romance. It’s not a boring place to be, the mathematical world. It’s an extraordinary place; it’s worth spending time there." - Marcus du Sautoy

 

"Pure mathematics is the world’s best game. It is more absorbing than chess, more of a gamble than poker, and lasts longer than Monopoly. It’s free. It can be played anywhere — Archimedes did it in a bathtub." - Richard J. Trudeau

 

“If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.” - Galileo Galilei

 

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes

 

"The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." - Richard Hamming

 

"Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down to earth.” - Marston Morse

 

“Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.” - Frank Capra

 

“Mathematics is a language.” - Josiah Willard Gibbs 

 

“It is clear that the chief end of mathematical study must be to make the students think.” – John Wesley Young

 

“Mathematics is the science which uses easy words for hard ideas.” – Edward Kasner

 

“You can be creative in anything — in math, science, engineering, philosophy — as much as you can in music or in painting or in dance.” – Ken Robinson

 

“Math is like going to the gym for your brain. It sharpens your mind.” - Danica McKellar

 

“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why.” – Bernard Baruch

 

“It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences.” - Eric Temple Bell

 

“Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.” - Stendhal 

 

"Mathematics is as much an aspect of culture as it is a collection of algorithms." - Carl Benjamin Boyer

 

"Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things." - Isaac Newton

 

“Mathematics is on the artistic side, a creation of new rhythms, orders, designs, harmonies, and on the knowledge side, is a systematic study of various rhythms, orders.” - William L. Schaaf

 

"I can only play the sport for so long, I have mathematics for the rest of my life." - John Urschel

 

"Scientists too seldom stress the enormity of our ignorance." - Vera Rubin

 

"You have to spend some energy and effort to see the beauty in math." - Maryam Mirzakhani

 

“To me, mathematics, computer science, and the arts are insanely related. They’re all creative expressions.” – Sebastian Thrun

 

“One of the endlessly alluring aspects of mathematics is that its thorniest paradoxes have a way of blooming into beautiful theories.” -Philip J. Davis

 

“The important thing to remember about mathematics is not to be frightened.” – Richard Dawkins

 

“No human investigation can be called real science if it cannot be demonstrated mathematically.” – Leonardo Da Vinci

 

“The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.” - Charles Caleb Colton

 

"Every new body of discovery is mathematical in form, because there is no other guidance we can have." - Charles Darwin

 

"The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics." - Paul Halmos

 

“Mathematics is the gate and key to science.” - Roger Bacon

 

“Math is the only place where truth and beauty mean the same thing.” - Danica McKellar

 

“There will always be science, engineering, and technology. And there will always, always be mathematics.” – Katherine Johnson

 

“You don’t have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers.” - John Forbes Nash, Jr.

 

“Mathematics is the most beautiful and most powerful creation of the human spirit.” - Stefan Banach

 

“Mathematics expresses values that reflect the cosmos, including orderliness, balance, harmony, logic, and abstract beauty.” - Deepak Chopra

 

“Number rules the universe.” - Pythagoras

 

“I’ve always enjoyed mathematics. It is the most precise and concise way of expressing an idea.” -  N.R. Narayana Murthy

 

“In mathematics, the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.” - Georg Cantor  

 

“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.” - John von Neumann

 

"Just because we can’t find a solution, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one." - Andrew Wiles

 

"Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them.”
- Joseph Fourier

 

"Life is a math equation. In order to gain the most, you have to know how to convert negatives into positives." - Anonymous

 

"Mathematics may not teach us to add love or subtract hate, but it gives us hope that every problem has a solution." - Anonymous

 

"A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician." - Karl Weierstrass

 

"Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems — they love a challenge." - Andrew Wiles

 

“The essence of math is not to make simple things complicated, but to make complicated things simple.” - Stan Gudder

 

"Wherever there is number, there is beauty." - Proclus

 

“Why do children dread mathematics? Because of the wrong approach. Because it is looked at as a subject.” - Shakuntala Devi

 

"To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world." - Richard P. Feynman

 

"What is mathematics? It is only a systematic effort of solving puzzles posed by nature." - Shakuntala Devi

 

“I’ve always been interested in using mathematics to make the world work better.” - Alvin E. Roth

 

"The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom." - Georg Cantor

 

“Nature is written in mathematical language.” - Galileo Galilei

 

“‘Obvious’ is the most dangerous word in mathematics.” - Eric Temple Bell

 

“Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding.” - William Paul Thurston

 

“Mathematics is the music of reason.” - James Joseph Sylvester

 

“There should be no such thing as boring mathematics.” - Edsger Dijkstra

 

“It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.” - Sofia Kovalevskaya

 

“Go down deep enough into anything and you will find mathematics.” - Dean Schlicter

 

"Life is good for only two things, discovering mathematics and teaching mathematics." - Simeon Poisson

 

“All systems operate optimally. You just have to figure out what they are optimizing over.” - Henry Pollak

 

"Mathematics is a place where you can do things which you can’t do in the real world." - Marcus du Sautoy