Joseph-Louis Lagrange

When one has a good theory, one can always find facts to support it.

It seems to me that the true metaphysics of the calculus consists in the analysis of the functions, and that the theory of limits is only a means of arriving at it.

The solution of a problem is not complete until it has been reduced to its simplest terms.

I have always been astonished that in the whole of mathematics, there is no method for determining the maximum and minimum of functions of several variables.

It is by the union of algebra and geometry that the progress of both has been so rapid and so extensive.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

I consider it a great misfortune for a mathematician to be without a good memory.

It is not by the number of pages that a book is to be judged, but by the quantity of new ideas it contains.

The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.

Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic the queen of mathematics.

The true method of discovery is to have no method.

I have never been able to understand why the mathematicians have not made more use of the method of variations.

The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability.

It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to will, we must also do.

The advantage of the analytical method is that it is always the same, whatever the nature of the problem.

I have always found that the most difficult problems are those that appear the simplest.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.

It is not by the number of theorems that a science is to be judged, but by the number of new ideas it contains.

The true spirit of mathematics is to be found in the solution of problems.

I have always considered the method of variations as one of the most important discoveries of modern analysis.