110+ Henri Poincare Quotes On Education, World And Hyposis

Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as The Last Universalist, since he excelled in all fields of the discipline as it existed during his lifetime. He made major contributions in many areas, including algebra, analysis, differential equations, geometry, probability, and topology. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Henri Poincare on education, life, love.

Top 10 Henri Poincare Quotes

1. Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
2. It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.
3. The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
4. There are no solved problems; there are only problems that are more or less solved.
5. One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient.
6. Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures.
7. Every good mathematician should also be a good chess player and vice versa.
8. It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.
9. Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.
10. To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincare Short Quotes

• Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.
• Mathematicians are born, not made.
• Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
• Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
• A cat is witty, he has nerve, he knows how to do precisely the right thing at the right moment.
• A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter.
• What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
• Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?
• Experiment is the sole source of truth.
• Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.

Henri Poincare Quotes About Facts

Thought must never submit, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, save to the facts themselves, because, for thought, submission would mean ceasing to be. — Henri Poincare

Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts. — 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. They reveal the kinship between other facts, long known, but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another. — Henri Poincare

Science is built up of 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

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

Les faits ne parlent pas. Facts do not speak. — Henri Poincare

Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. — Henri Poincare

Facts do not speak. — Henri Poincare

Science is facts. — Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare Quotes About Science

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

Pure logic could never lead us to anything but tautologies; it can create nothing new; not from it alone can any science issue. — Henri Poincare

A reality completely independent of the spirit that conceives it, sees it, or feels it, is an impossibility. A world so external as that, even if it existed, would be forever inaccessible to us. — Henri Poincare

All great progress takes place when two sciences come together, and when their resemblance proclaims itself, despite the apparent disparity of their substance. — 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

It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem. — Henri Poincare

Sociology is the science with the greatest number of methods and the least results. — Henri Poincare

For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination; but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold. — Henri Poincare

When the physicists ask us for the solution of a problem, it is not drudgery that they impose on us, on the contrary, it is us who owe them thanks. — Henri Poincare

It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. — Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare Quotes About Nature

If one looks at the different problems of the integral calculus which arise naturally when one wishes to go deep into the different parts of physics, it is impossible not to be struck by the analogies existing. — 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

If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment. — 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

Mathematics has a threefold purpose. It must provide an instrument for the study of nature. But this is not all: it has a philosophical purpose, and, I daresay, an aesthetic purpose. — 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

Henri Poincare Quotes About Convenient

One does not ask whether a scientific theory is true, but only whether it is convenient. — Henri Poincare

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. — Henri Poincare

It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. — Henri Poincare

Doubting everything and believing everything are two equally convenient solutions that guard us from having to think — Henri Poincare

Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either we dispense with the need for reflection. — Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare Quotes About Mind

In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. — Henri Poincare

A sane mind should not be guilty of a logical fallacy, yet there are very fine minds incapable of following mathematical demonstrations. — Henri Poincare

Often when works at a hard question, nothing good is accomplished at the first attack. Then one takes a rest, long or short, and sits down anew to the work. During the first half-hour, as before, nothing is found, and then all of a sudden the decisive idea presents itself to the mind. — Henri Poincare

Astronomy is useful because it raises us above ourselves; it is useful because it is grand; .... It shows us how small is man's body, how great his mind, since his intelligence can embrace the whole of this dazzling immensity, where his body is only an obscure point, and enjoy its silent harmony. — Henri Poincare

Einstein does not remain attached to the classical principles, and when presented with a problem in physics he quickly envisages all of its possibilities. This leads immediately in his mind to the prediction of new phenomena which may one day be verified by experiment. — Henri Poincare

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

In the old days when people invented a new function they had something useful in mind. Now, they invent them deliberately just to invalidate our ancestors' reasoning, and that is all they are ever going to get out of them. — Henri Poincare

Henri Poincare Famous Quotes And Sayings

It is the harmony of the diverse parts, their symmetry, their happy balance; in a word it is all that introduces order, all that gives unity, that permits us to see clearly and to comprehend at once both the ensemble and the details. — Henri Poincare

Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations among objects; they are indifferent to the replacement of objects by others as long the relations don't change. Matter is not important, only form interests them. — Henri Poincare

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. [As opposed to the quotation: Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing]. — Henri Poincare

Most striking at first is the appearance of sudden illumination, a manifest sign of long unconscious prior work. — Henri Poincare

...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know — Henri Poincare

Ideas rose in clouds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination. — Henri Poincare

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation They always presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by labour, both conscious and subconscious. — Henri Poincare

It is the simple hypotheses of which one must be most wary; because these are the ones that have the most chances of passing unnoticed. — Henri Poincare

If we ought not to fear mortal truth, still less should we dread scientific truth. In the first place it can not conflict with ethics? But if science is feared, it is above all because it can give no happiness? Man, then, can not be happy through science but today he can much less be happy without it. — Henri Poincare

[T]he different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition [G]eometry is not true, it is advantageous. — Henri Poincare

The subliminal self is in no way inferior to the conscious self. It knows how to choose and to divine. — Henri Poincare

Mathematicians do not deal in objects, but in relations between objects; thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only. — Henri Poincare

It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the later. Prediction becomes impossible, and we have the fortuitous phenomena. — 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

Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority. — Henri Poincare

Talk with M. Hermite. He never evokes a concrete image, yet you soon perceive that the more abstract entities are to him like living creatures. — Henri Poincare

If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by the laws. — Henri Poincare

When the logician has resolved each demonstration into a host of elementary operations, all of them correct, he will not yet be in possession of the whole reality, that indefinable something that constitutes the unity ... Now pure logic cannot give us this view of the whole; it is to intuition that we must look for it. — Henri Poincare

How is an error possible in mathematics? — Henri Poincare

Chance ... must be something more than the name we give to our ignorance. — Henri Poincare

But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following. — Henri Poincare

Thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged. — 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

A first fact should surprise us, or rather would surprise us if we were not used to it. How does it happen there are people who do not understand mathematics? If mathematics invokes only the rules of logic, such as are accepted by all normal minds...how does it come about that so many persons are here refractory? — Henri Poincare

All the scientist creates in a fact is the language in which he enunciates it. If he predicts a fact, he will employ this language, and for all those who can speak and understand it, his prediction is free from ambiguity. Moreover, this prediction once made, it evidently does not depend upon him whether it is fulfilled or not. — Henri Poincare

It is by logic we prove. It is by intuition we discover. — Henri Poincare

Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence.... The two propositions: "The earth turns round" and "it is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round" have the same meaning; there is nothing more in the one than in the other. — Henri Poincare

What is a good definition? For the philosopher or the scientist, it is a definition which applies to all the objects to be defined, and applies only to them; it is that which satisfies the rules of logic. But in education it is not that; it is one that can be understood by the pupils. — Henri Poincare

Intuition is more important to discovery than logic. — Henri Poincare

No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does. — Henri Poincare

Deviner avant de démontrer! Ai-je besoin de rappeler que c'est ainsi que se sont faites toutes les découvertes importantes. — Henri Poincare

The task of the educator is to make the child's spirit pass again where its forefathers have gone, moving rapidly through certain stages but suppressing none of them. In this regard, the history of science must be our guide. — Henri Poincare

The advance of science is not comparable to the changes of a city, where old edifices are pitilessly torn down to give place to new, but to the continuous evolution of zoologic types which develop ceaselessly and end by becoming unrecognisable to the common sight, but where an expert eye finds always traces of the prior work of the centuries past. One must not think then that the old-fashioned theories have been sterile and vain. — Henri Poincare

Logic sometimes makes monsters. For half a century we have seen a mass of bizarre functions which appear to be forced to resemble as little as possible honest functions which serve some purpose. — Henri Poincare

It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better. — Henri Poincare

All that we can hope from these inspirations, which are the fruits of unconscious work, is to obtain points of departure for such calculations. As for the calculations themselves, they must be made in the second period of conscious work which follows the inspiration, and in which the results of the inspiration are verified and the consequences deduced.‎ — Henri Poincare

It is with logic that one proves; it is with intuition that one invents. — Henri Poincare

Absolute space, that is to say, the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence. — Henri Poincare

But all of my efforts served only to make me better acquainted with the difficulty, which in itself was something. — 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 attention of all who wish to devote themselves to education. — Henri Poincare

It is a misfortune for a science to be born too late when the means of observation have become too perfect. That is what is happening at this moment with respect to physical chemistry; the founders are hampered in their general grasp by third and fourth decimal places. — Henri Poincare

All of mathematics is a tale about groups. — Henri Poincare

Thus, be it understood, to demonstrate a theorem, it is neither necessary nor even advantageous to know what it means. — 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

It is not order only, but unexpected order, that has value. — Henri Poincare

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

The aim of science is not things themselves, as the dogmatists in their simplicity imagine, but the relation between things. — Henri Poincare

Later generations will regard Mengenlehre (set theory) as a disease from which one has recovered. — Henri Poincare

A very small cause, which escapes us, determines a considerable effect which we cannot ignore, and we say that this effect is due to chance. — Henri Poincare

Analyse data just so far as to obtain simplicity and no further. — Henri Poincare

All that is not thought is pure nothingness; since we can think only thoughts, and all the words we use to speak of things can express only thoughts, to say there is something other than thought is therefore an affirmation which can have no meaning. — Henri Poincare

Zero is the number of objects that satisfy a condition that is never satisfied. But as never means "in no case", I do not see that any progress has been made. — Henri Poincare

Tolstoi explains somewhere in his writings why, in his opinion, “Science for Science's sake” is an absurd conception. We cannot know all the facts, since they are practically infinite in number. We must make a selection. Is it not better to be guided by utility, by our practical, and more especially our moral, necessities? — Henri Poincare

To invent is to discern, to choose. — Henri Poincare

Life Lessons by Henri Poincare

1. Henri Poincare's life teaches us to never give up, no matter how difficult the task. He worked tirelessly on complex mathematical problems and was able to make significant contributions to the field despite facing many setbacks.
2. He also taught us the importance of having a growth mindset and taking risks. He was not afraid to try new approaches and to explore uncharted territory in his work.
3. Finally, his life serves as a reminder that hard work and dedication can lead to great success. He was able to achieve his dreams despite the odds, and his legacy continues to inspire generations of mathematicians.