The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it. Alfred North Whitehead
About This Quote

When Albert Einstein was asked about the joys of his work, he replied, "The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment. We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it."

Source: An Introduction To Mathematics

Some Similar Quotes
  1. I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his... - Elizabeth Gilbert
  2. Nobody ever gets what they want when it comes to love. - Scott Turow
  3. The strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that precedes all the great events in the heart's history. - Stefan Zweig
  4. Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment. - Haruki Murakami
  5. When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way. - Paulo Coelho
More Quotes By Alfred North Whitehead
  1. Philosophy begins in wonder. And at the end when philosophic thought has done its best the wonder remains.
  2. The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural...
  3. Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice; the persecuting people it carries into fiendish sadistic cruelty. Mind you, though this may seem to justify the eighteenth-century Age of Reason in...
  4. Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development.
  5. In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed.
Related Topics