“Wherever Mathematics is mixed up with anything, which is outside its field, you will find attempts to demonstrate these merely conventional propositions a priori, and it will be your task to find out the false deduction in each case.”
Vorlesungen über analytische Mechanik [Lectures on Analytical Mechanics] (1847/48; edited by Helmut Pulte in 1996).
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi4
German mathematician 1804–1851Related quotes
Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher
Rudolf Carnap (1935) Philosophy and Logical Syntax. p. 9-10
Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet
Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles (1976) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 338,#6.
Misattributed
Helen Schucman (1909–1981) Clinical Psychologist
Jesus' Course in Miracles (2000) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 162
“May the IRS find that you deduct your pet sheep as an entertainment expense.”
Christopher Moore book Practical Demonkeeping
Author's Blessing
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal (2002)
Source: Practical Demonkeeping
Context: If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it.
If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil.
If you seek an adventure, may this song sing you away to blissful escape.
If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions.
All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not.
May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them.
May you find perfection, and know it by name.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
5.5571
Original German: Wenn ich die Elementarsätze nicht a priori angeben kann, dann muss es zu offenbarem Unsinn führen, sie angeben zu wollen.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist
Source: The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)
Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist
Source: Classification and indexing in science (1958), Chapter 1: The need for classification, p. 11.