4 Quotes & Sayings By Richard Courant

Richard Courant is the author of the book, As I See It: A Guide to Spiritual Practice. He has been practicing meditation for more than thirty years. He is the co-founder of the California-based organization Insight Meditation Community of Washington DC and a regular teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. He has been a longtime member of the Order of Christian Brothers, a contemplative order established in 1839 to serve the needs of children and young people.

1
Mathematics as an expression of the human mind reflects the active will, the contemplative reason, and the desire for aesthetic perfection. Its basic elements are logic and intuition, analysis and construction, generality and individuality. Though different traditions may emphasize different aspects, it is only the interplay of these antithetic forces and the struggle for their synthesis that constitute the life, usefulness, and supreme value of mathematical science. Richard Courant
2
For scholars and laymen alike it is not philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that can alone answer the question: What is mathematics? Richard Courant
3
It becomes the urgent duty of mathematicians, therefore, to meditate about the essence of mathematics, its motivations and goals and the ideas that must bind divergent interests together. Richard Courant