Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Mathematics possesses truth and a cold, austere beauty comparable to sculpture, pure and perfect without emotional embellishment.
- In plain terms
- Math is both true and beautifully pure, like a sculpture.
- What can you take from it?
- Value mathematics for its pure, unadorned beauty.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What makes mathematical beauty 'cold'?
- Can emotional appeal coexist with austere beauty?
Another view
Its stark beauty may feel inaccessible to many.
More from Bertrand Russell
The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.
Permalink to quote #65 Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the world, but every possible world, must confo…
Permalink to quote #67 The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as s…
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