Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) was a German mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, celebrated for his foundational contributions across various disciplines. Revered as the “Prince of Mathematicians,” Gauss made significant advancements in number theory, notably in prime distribution and modular arithmetic, as detailed in his influential work Disquisitiones Arithmeticae. His formulation of Gauss’s law in physics established a fundamental principle relating electric charge distribution to electric fields. Gauss’s mathematical prowess extended to differential geometry, where he presented the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, linking surface curvature to topology.

Carl Friedrich Gauss Quotes

1. “It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

2. “Mathematics is the queen of the sciences.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

3. “The Infinite is only a manner of speaking.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

4. “Mathematical discoveries, like springtime violets in the woods, have their season which no human can hasten or retard.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

5. “The enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

6. “You have no idea, how much poetry there is in the calculation of a table of logarithms!”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

7. “Mathematicians stand on each other’s shoulders.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

8. “Sophie Germain proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something in the most rigorous and abstract of sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

9. “If others would but reflect on mathematical truths as deeply and continuously as I have, they would make my discoveries.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

10. “In mathematics there are no true controversies.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

11. “The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

12. “There have been only three epoch-making mathematicians, Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

13. “Arc, amplitude, and curvature sustain a similar relation to each other as time, motion, and velocity, or as volume, mass, and density.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

14. “There are problems to whose solution I would attach an infinitely greater importance than to those of mathematics, for example touching ethics, or our relation to God, or concerning our destiny and our future; but their solution lies wholly beyond us and completely outside the province of science.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

15. “Finally, two days ago, I succeeded – not on account of my hard efforts, but by the grace of the Lord. Like a sudden flash of lightning, the riddle was solved. I am unable to say what was the conducting thread that connected what I previously knew with what made my success possible.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

16. “You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

17. “Ask her to wait a moment I am almost done.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

18. “The total number of Dirichlet’s publications is not large: jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

19. “I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

20. “Theory attracts practice as the magnet attracts iron.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

21. “When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

22. “Mathematics is concerned only with the enumeration and comparison of relations.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

23. “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

24. “Life stands before me like an eternal spring with new and brilliant clothes.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

25. “When a philosopher says something that is true then it is trivial. When he says something that is not trivial then it is false.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

26. “Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

27. “I am giving this winter two courses of lectures to three students, of which one is only moderately prepared, the other less than moderately, and the third lacks both preparation and ability. Such are the onera of a mathematical profession.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

28. “It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

29. “By explanation the scientist understands nothing except the reduction to the least and simplest basic laws possible, beyond which he cannot go, but must plainly demand them; from them however he deduces the phenomena absolutely completely as necessary.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

30. “His second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

31. “We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

32. “Less depends upon the choice of words than upon this, that their introduction shall be justified by pregnant theorems.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

33. “To such idle talk it might further be added: that whenever a certain exclusive occupation is coupled with specific shortcomings, it is likewise almost certainly divorced from certain other shortcomings.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

34. “No contradictions will arise as long as Finite Man does not mistake the infinite for something fixed, as long as he is not led by an acquired habit of mind to regard the infinite as something bounded.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

35. “Response, when asked how he came upon his theorems.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

36. “The higher arithmetic presents us with an inexhaustible store of interesting truths – of truths, too, which are not isolated, but stand in a close internal connection, and between which, as our knowledge increases, we are continually discovering new and sometimes wholly unexpected ties.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss

37. “I believe you are more believing in the Bible than I. I am not, and, you are much happier than I.”
— Carl Friedrich Gauss