Mathematics for the Nonmathematician Quotes

“All mathematical proofs must be deductive. Each proof is a chain of deductive arguments, each of which has its premises and conclusion.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“The feeling that one must be an authority in a subject to say anything about it is unfounded. We are all laymen outside the field of our own specialty,”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“Man knew how to feed, clothe, and house himself millenniums before mathematics existed.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“Because we are forced to learn about numbers and operations with numbers while we are still too young to appreciate them—a preparation for life which hardly excites our interest in the future—we grow up believing that numbers are drab and uninteresting. But the number system warrants attention not only as the basis of mathematics, but because it contains weighty and beautiful ideas which lend themselves to powerful applications.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“As far back as about the year 400 A.D., St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa and one of the great fathers of Christianity, had this to say: The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“The supreme contribution of the Greeks was to call attention to, employ, and emphasize the power of human reason. This recognition of the power of reasoning is the greatest single discovery made by man.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“Aristotle says, “Now what is characteristic of any nature is that which is best for it and gives most joy. Such to man is the life according to reason, since it is that which makes him man.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“Just what did the Greeks seek in probing nature? They sought no material gain and no power over nature; they sought merely to satisfy their minds. Because they enjoyed reasoning and because nature presented the most imposing challenge to their understanding, the Greeks undertook the purely intellectual study of nature. Thus the Greeks are the founders of science in the true sense.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“At about the same time that St. Augustine lived, the Roman jurists ruled, under the Code of Mathematicians and Evil-Doers, that “to learn the art of geometry and to take part in public exercises, an art as damnable as mathematics, are forbidden.”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

“same phenomenon and concludes that the phenomenon will always occur. Conclusions obtained by induction seem well warranted”
― Morris Kline, Mathematics for the Nonmathematician