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Carl Friedrich Gauss
(30 Apr 1777 - 23 Feb 1855)
German mathematician who transformed nearly all areas of mathematics, and contributed much to other areas of science.
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Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes on Biography (5 quotes)
>> Click for 52 Science Quotes by Carl Friedrich Gauss
>> Click for Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes on | Education | Mathematics | Number |
>> Click for 52 Science Quotes by Carl Friedrich Gauss
>> Click for Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes on | Education | Mathematics | Number |
Ask her to wait a moment. I am almost done.
When told, while working, that his wife was dying.
When told, while working, that his wife was dying.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Quoted in E.T. Bell, Men of Mathematics, (1937).
For three days now this angel, almost too heavenly for earth has been my fiancée … Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant colours. Upon his engagement to Johanne Osthof of Brunswick; they married 9 Oct 1805.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Letter to Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai (1804). Quoted in Stephen Hawking, God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs (2005), 567.
I have the vagary of taking a lively interest in mathematical subjects only where I may anticipate ingenious association of ideas and results recommending themselves by elegance or generality.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Letter to Heinrich Schumacher (17 Sep 1808). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again; the never-satisfied man is so strange if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully,but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Letter to Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai (2 Sep 1808). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 416.
With a thousand joys I would accept a nonacademic job for which industriousness, accuracy, loyalty, and such are sufficient without specialized knowledge, and which would give a comfortable living and sufficient leisure, in order to sacrifice to my gods [mathematical research]. For example, I hope to get the editting of the census, the birth and death lists in local districts, not as a job, but for my pleasure and satisfaction...
— Carl Friedrich Gauss
Letter to Heinrich Olbers (26 Oct 1802). Quoted in G. Waldo Dunnington, Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science (2004), 415.
![Carl Friedrich Gauss quote: Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic [number theory] is the queen of mathematics.](https://todayinsci.com/G/Gauss_Carl/GaussCarl-QueenThm.jpg)
See also:
- 30 Apr - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Gauss's birth.
- Carl Friedrich Gauss: Titan of Science, by G. Waldo Dunnington. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
