Liberty Quotes (3)
The Mathematics, I say, which effectually exercises, not vainly deludes or vexatiously torments studious Minds with obscure Subtilties, perplexed Difficulties, or contentious Disquisitions; which overcomes without Opposition, triumphs without Pomp, compels without Force, and rules absolutely without Loss of Liberty; which does not privately over-reach a weak Faith, but openly assaults an armed Reason, obtains a total Victory, and puts on inevitable Chains; whose Words are so many Oracles, and Works as many Miracles; which blabs out nothing rashly, nor designs anything from the Purpose, but plainly demonstrates and readily performs all Things within its Verge; which obtrudes no false Shadow of Science, but the very Science itself, the Mind firmly adhering to it, as soon as possessed of it, and can never after desert it of its own Accord, or be deprived of it by any Force of others: Lastly the Mathematics, which depends upon Principles clear to the Mind, and agreeable to Experience; which draws certain Conclusions, instructs by profitable Rules, unfolds pleasant Questions; and produces wonderful Effects; which is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to human Affairs.
Address to the University of Cambridge upon being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (14 Mar 1664). In Mathematical Lectures (1734), xxviii.
See also: | Advantage (6) | Chain (3) | Compel (2) | Conclusion (24) | Difficulty (16) | Experience (57) | Faith (28) | False (13) | Foundation (10) | Fountain (2) | Mathematics (221) | Mind (116) | Miracle (10) | Oracle (2) | Principle (31) | Purpose (15) | Question (45) | Question (45) | Rashly (2) | Reason (69) | Rule (16) | Science (444) | Science And Art (25) | Shadow (5) | Victory (3) | Word (31)
The science of government is my duty. ... I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Letter to Abigail Adams, (1780). In John Adams and Charles Francis Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841), 68.
See also: | Agriculture (8) | Architecture (10) | Commerce (2) | Duty (7) | Geography (11) | Government (28) | Mathematics (221) | Natural History (8) | Philosophy (72) | Politics (18) | Porcelain (2) | Sculpture (3) | Son (3) | Tapestry (2) | War (51)
We are at that very point in time when a four-hundred-year-old age is rattling in its deathbed and another is struggling to be born. A shifting of culture, science, society and institutions enormously greater and swifter than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, lies the possibility of regeneration of individuality, liberty, community and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another and with the divine intelligence such as the world has always dreamed.
Birth of the Chaordic Age (1999), 310-311.
See also: | Community (11) | Culture (22) | Ethics (16) | Harmony (7) | Institution (5) | Nature (243) | Science (444) | Society (24)
