“… mathematicians progress only by doubt, through humble and constant attempts to impinge on the immense domain of the unknown.”

—  Leopold Infeld

[Leopold Infeld, Whom the Gods Love: The Story of Évariste Galois, Whittlesey House, 1948, 9]

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 "… mathematicians progress only by doubt, through humble and constant attempts to impinge on the immense domain of the u…" by Leopold Infeld?
Leopold Infeld photo
Leopold Infeld2
Polish physicist 1898–1968

Related quotes

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“He liked the vast openness of sky and prairie, and found loneliness a pleasure with so immense a domain to be alone in.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, City of Illusions (1967), Chapter 3

Bram van Velde photo

“At is taking risks.... a sincere attempt to achieve the impossible, the unknown.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

short quotes, 14 September 1967; p. 68
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant. ”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Leonid Brezhnev photo

“Today progress is so swift in all fields that the education received by young people is only a foundation that requires the constant acquisition of knowledge.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in Soviet Youth and Socialism http://leninist.biz/en/1974/SYAS228/3.1-Youth.and.Culture

Ira Glass photo

“Progress' constant companion is nostalgia for the way things used to be.”

Ira Glass (1959) American radio personality

"Pandora's Box", This American Life, television season 1, installment 6, 26 April 2007.
This American Life

Friedrich List photo

“The world has not been hindered in its progress, but immensely aided in it, by England.”

Friedrich List (1789–1846) German economist with dual American citizenship

Source: The National System of Political Economy (1841), p. 365

Stanley Baldwin photo

“The responsibility for progress rests not only on the Government, but on every man and woman in the country. The Government can go no faster in progress than the people will allow them to do. Willing co-operation in new methods is essential, and without the will to work progress is not possible, and with constant stoppages of industry progress is not possible.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at the Albert Hall (4 December 1924), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), p. 70.
1924

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo

“Without a constant misuse of language, there cannot be any discovery, any progress.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend book Against Method

pg. 27.
Against Method (1975)
Source: Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge

Ayn Rand photo

“Capitalism is the only system where such men are free to function and where progress is accompanied, not by forced privations, but by a constant rise in the general level of prosperity, of consumption and of enjoyment of life.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

Sri Aurobindo photo

“To attempt to penetrate through the indeterminate confusion of present tendencies and first efforts in order to foresee the exact forms the new creation will take, would be an effort of very doubtful utility.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Renaissance in India (1918)
Context: To attempt to penetrate through the indeterminate confusion of present tendencies and first efforts in order to foresee the exact forms the new creation will take, would be an effort of very doubtful utility. One might as well try to forecast a harmony from the sounds made by the tuning of the instrument. In one direction or another we may just detect certain decisive indications, but even these are only first indications and we may be quite sure that much lies behind them that will go far beyond anything that they yet suggest. This is true whether in religion and spirituality or thought and science, poetry and art or society and politics. Everywhere there is, at most, only a beginning of beginnings.

Related topics