Maxim 609, trans. Stopp
Maxims and Reflections (1833)
“Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.”
... es ist wahr, ein Mathematiker, der nicht etwas Poet ist, wird nimmer ein vollkommener Mathematiker sein.
Letter to Sofia Kovalevskaya, August 27, 1883, as shared by Gösta Mittag-Leffler at the 2nd International Congress for Mathematicians in Paris. Compte rendu du deuxième Congrès international des mathematiciens tenu à Paris du 6 au 12 août 1900, Gauthier-Villars (Paris), 1902, page 149.
“Math is perfect (in principle), but mathematicians are not (because they are humans)”
Computerized Deconstruction. Appeared in Adv. Appl. Math. v. 31 (2003), 532-543.
Context: Math is perfect (in principle), but mathematicians are not (because they are humans), hence the mathematics that (human) mathematicians do is influenced by the weltanschauung of the people around them.
Ibid., p. 150
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O homem perfeito do pagão era a perfeição do homem que há; o homem perfeito do cristão a perfeição do homem que não há; o homem perfeito do budista a perfeição de não haver homem.
“I believe Beauty is the condition of the perfect life, just as important as Virtue and Truth.”
"Credo"
“Perfect health, like perfect beauty, is a rare thing; and so, it seems, is perfect disease.”
Infertility Counseling: A Comprehensive Handbook for Clinicians - Page 179 by Linda Hammer Burns, Sharon N. Covington - Medical - 2000.
Collected Works
[2005, The Transfiguration of Man, World Wisdom, 72, 978-0-94153219-8]
Spiritual life, Truth
“That soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.”
Epilogue. Compare: "An honest man's the noblest work of God", Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 248.
The Honest Man's Fortune, (1613; published 1647)
From an Interview with John Wood of the Boston Globe with Guru Maharaj Ji in Newton, Massachusetts, August 3, 1973, published in And It Is Divine ~ Dec. 1973, Volume 2. Issue 2.
1970s
