Vernacular Quotes (1 quote)
Mathematics, too, is a language, and as concerns its structure and content it is the most perfect language which exists, superior to any vernacular; indeed, since it is understood by every people, mathematics may be called the language of languages. Through it, as it were, nature herself speaks; through it the Creator of the world has spoken, and through it the Preserver of the world continues to speak.
In Die Mathematik die Fackeltragerin einer neutn Zeit (1889), 5. As translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-Book (1914), 194. From the original German, “Denn auch die Mathematik ist eine Sprache, und zwar nach Bau und Inhalt die vollkommenste Sprache, die es giebt, höher als jede Volkssprache; ja, weil alle Völker sie verstehen, kann sie die Sprache der Sprachen heißen. In ihr spricht sozusagen die Natur selbst, in ihr hat der Schöpfer der Welt geredet und in ihr redet noch immer ihr Erhalter.”
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) -- 
