“I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret Magic of numbers.”

Section 12
Religio Medici (1643), Part I

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret Magic of numbers." by Thomas Browne?

Thomas Browne78

English polymath 1605–1682

Related quotes

“When a man counts one, two, three, he is not only doing mathematics, he is on the path to the mysticism of numbers in Pythagoras and Vitruvius and Kepler, to the Trinity and the signs of the Zodiac.”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

"The Reach of Imagination" (1967)

“Pythagoras says that number is the origin of all things, and certainly the law of number is the key that unlocks the secrets of the universe. But the law of number possesses an immanent order, which is at first sight mystifying, but on a more intimate acquaintance we easily understand it to be intrinsically necessary; and this law of number explains the wondrous consistency of the laws of nature.”

Paul Carus (1852–1919) American philosopher

"Reflections on Magic Squares" in The Monist, Vol. 16 (1906), p. 139

“Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

“The elementary particles in Plato's Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms. "All things are numbers" is a sentence attributed to Pythagoras.”

Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist

Physics and Philosophy (1958)
Context: But the resemblance of the modern views to those of Plato and the Pythagoreans can be carried somewhat further. The elementary particles in Plato's Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms. "All things are numbers" is a sentence attributed to Pythagoras. The only mathematical forms available at that time were such geometric forms as the regular solids or the triangles which form their surface. In modern quantum theory there can be no doubt that the elementary particles will finally also be mathematical forms but of a much more complicated nature.