Math Quotes

We hope you enjoy our collection of favorite funny math quotes from all over. You may also want to check out our geometry math quotes, algebra math quotes and calculus math quotes on our math trivia.page.

General

Do you remember the famous toast, "Here's to pure mathematics - nay it never be of use to anybody"? -- Arthur C. Clarke

"Daddy, people think really small numbers are easy to work with, but they are not, because really small numbers are really big negative numbers" (Eamonn Ryan, age 4, self-proclaimed mathematician).

"But don't panic. Base 8 is just like Base 10 really. If you're missing two fingers." -- Tom Lehrer

"This is a one line proof...if we start sufficiently far to the left."

“These days, even the most pure and abstract mathematics is in danger to be applied.”

"The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try again."

"Natural numbers are better for your health."

"Decimals have a point."

"Polar coordinates aren't just arctic fashions."

"What's one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?" "I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count." "She can't do addition," said the Red Queen." -- Lewis Carroll (check out our Tribute to Lewis Carroll)

"A math student's best friend is BOB (the Back Of the Book), but remember that BOB doesn't come to school on test days." -- Josh Folb

“I advise my students to listen carefully the moment they decide to take no more mathematics courses. They might be able to hear the sound of closing doors.” -- James Caballero

"Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts. -- Albert Einstein

"Minus times minus equals plus; The reason for this we won't discuss."

"The elegance of a theorem is directly proportional to the number of ideas you can see in it and inversely proportional to the effort it take to see them." -- George Polya

An interesting theorem of mathematics differs from interesting results in other fields because over and above the surpise and beauty of what it says, it has an 'aspect of eternity'; it is always part of an infinite chain of results. -- Leo Zeppen

"A theory has the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right but irrelevant" -- Manfred Eigen

"A first-rate theory predicts; a second-rate theory forbids; and a third-rate theory explains after the event" -- A. J. Kitaigorodskii

"I understand mathematics, I just can't do proofs."

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right, but a single experiment might prove me wrong" -- Albert Einstein

"Three out of every two people are bad at working with fractions".~Mrs. Barton's 2010 Algebra 1 class

“A law of conservation of difficulties: there is no easy way to prove a deep result.”

“What is a rigorous definition of rigor?”

"It is an error to believe that rigor in a proof is an enemy of simplicity. On the contrary we find it confirmed by numerous examples that the rigorous method is, at the same time, the simpler and the more easily comprehended. The very effort for rigor forces us to find the simpler methods of proof." -- David Hilbert

"Do the math: Count your blessings."

"An idea which can be used once is a trick. If it can be used more than once it becomes a method." -- George Polya and Gabor Szego

"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." -- Professor Robert Silensky

"The value of a problem is not so much coming up with the answer as in the ideas and attempted ideas it forces on the would be solver." -- I. N. Herstein

"Do not worry too much about your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you that mine are still greater." -- Albert Einstein

"Logic is invincible, because in order to combat logic it is necessary to use logic." -- Pierre Boatroux;

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

"There are no solved problems; there are only problems that are more or less solved." -- Henri Poincare

"Every human activity, good or bad, except mathematics, must come to an end." -- Paul Erdos

"If there is a problem you can't solve, then there is an easier problem you can solve: find it." - George Polya

"What is now proved was once only imagined" - Proverb

"Men who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it."

"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."-- B. Russell, 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism'

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