“time destroyed all models which the anients may have left us in this genre”
Jean-Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783, French
Quotes
- My dear and illustrious friend – they write to me from Berlin that you are about to take what we philosophers call ‘le saut perilleux,’ and that you have married one of your relations. … Accept my compliments, for a mathematician ought to have pre-eminent advantages in the calculations of his own happiness, and any calculations of yours are sure to lead to a solution – the solution in your case being marriage. Letter to Lagrange
- What annoys me the most is the fact that geometry, which is the only occupation that truly interests me, is the one thing that I cannot do. All that I do in literature, although very well received in our public sessions of the French Academy, is for me only a way to fill the time for lack of anything better to do. Letter to Lagrange
