Quotes by Henri Poincare

About Henri Poincare:

Jules Henri Poincaré is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist by Eric Temple Bell, since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

Henri Poincare

The Scientist must set in order. 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

Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new; it alone can give us certainty.

Henri Poincare

How is it that there are so many minds that are incapable of understanding mathematics? ... the skeleton of our understanding, ... and actually they are the majority. ... We have here a problem that is not easy of solution, but yet must engage the at...

Henri Poincare

. I am not speaking, of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty which comes from the har...

Henri Poincare

Why is it that showers and even storms seem to come by chance, so that many people think it quite natural to pray for rain or fine weather, though they would consider it ridiculous to ask for an eclipse by prayer?

Henri Poincare

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

I then began to study arithmetical questions without any great apparent result, and without suspecting that they could have the least connexion with my previous researches. Disgusted at my want of success, I went away to spend a few days at the seasi...

Henri Poincare

Consider now the Milky Way. Here also we see an innumerable dust, only the grains of this dust are no longer atoms but stars; these grains also move with great velocities, they act at a distance one upon another, but this action is so slight at great...

Henri Poincare

In one word, to draw the rule from experience, one must generalize; this is a necessity that imposes itself on the most circumspect observer.

Henri Poincare

After the series, other series have entered the domain of analysis; they entered by the same door; they have been imagined in view of applications.

Henri Poincare

Thought is only a flash in the middle of a long night. But this flash means everything.

Henri Poincare

Guessing before proving! Need I remind you that it is so that all important discoveries have been made?

Henri Poincare

The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.

Henri Poincare

A very small cause which escapes our notice determines a considerable effect that we cannot fail to see, and then we say that the effect is due to chance.

Henri Poincare

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

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.

Henri Poincare

A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.

Henri Poincare

The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law.

Henri Poincare

If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.

Henri Poincare

Author Bio

  • NameHenri Poincare
  • Descriptionprominent French mathematician, physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science
  • AliasesJules Henri Poincaré; Poincaré
  • BornApril 29, 1854
  • DiedJuly 17, 1912
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionMathematician; Philosopher; Astronomer; Physicist; Engineer; Philosopher Of Science; Topologist
  • AwardsPoncelet Prize; Sylvester Medal; Commander Of The Legion Of Honour