Apostolos Doxiadis Quotes

Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that she doesn't fall into it - he will become a mystic or a madman... Which is probably the same thing!

It's been said before: 'The sleep of reason produces monsters.

Well, the Dean has asked me to speak on "The Role of Logic in Human Affairs". Of course, if I take the injunction literally you shall hear the shortest lecture in recorded history!

The things that cannot be talked about logically are the only ones which are truly important.

The meaning of the world does not reside in the world.

when Logic congeals into all-encompassing and perfect-seeming theories, then it can actually become a very evil con trick. Wittgenstein has a point, you see: 'All the facts of science are not enough to understand the world's meaning!

The oldest story around: Instinct, Emotion, and Habit get the better of human beings.

Put a man on the brink of the abyss and--in the unlikely event that he doesn't fall into it--he will become either a mystic or a madman...which is probably the same thing!

Ah, the superior masochism of the privileged.

Money corrupts so, best give it to the already corrupted.

The meaning is the ending.

All the facts of science aren't enough to understand the world's meaning. For this, you must step outside the world." "Without language of thought, how can you understand anything?" "Who knows, maybe by whistling?

Sometimes, the best argument in favour of the old... is the new!

(which has inspired at least one novel, Apostolos Doxiadis's Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture29).

Success in life is to be measured by the goals you’ve set yourself.

one should be brutally honest with oneself about weaknesses, acknowledge them with courage and chart further course accordingly.

Take my story as a cautionary tale, a narrative argument against ready-made solutions. It tells you that applying formulas is not good enough - not, that is, when you're faced with really hard problems!

A Lógica é uma ferramenta..." É o que eu digo. Como uma faca, pode ser usada para repartir o pão ou para matar! .... Parta das premissas erradas e a Lógica pode trabalhar para o carrasco.

Every family has its black sheep — in ours it was Uncle Petros.

Pon un hombre al filo del abismo y -en el improbable caso de que no se caiga- se convertirá en un místico o en un loco... ¡Lo que probablemente sea lo mismo!

I had mixed feelings for the proposed deal: I hated tests but adored challenges.

Every person has the right to expose himself to whatever disappointment he chooses,

But after a few months of tortuous happiness (‘alas, too few,’ my uncle said with a sigh), Isolde abandoned the family home and the arms of her boy-lover in order to marry a dashing lieutenant of the Prussian artillery. Petros was, of course, heartbroken.

Could my uncle have finally become unhinged?

Success in life is to be measured by the goals you’ve set yourself. There are tens of thousands of new theorems published every year the world over, but no more than a handful per century that make history!

He smiled, sadly. ‘You know the popular saying that the three conditions impossible to conceal are a cough, wealth and being in love? Well, to me there is a fourth: mathematical gift.

You should know — Aesop was a Greek.’ ‘What’s Aesop got to do with it?

The development of my own affair with mathematics had taught me an important lesson: one should be brutally honest with oneself about weaknesses, acknowledge them with courage and chart further course accordingly. For myself I had done this, but had Uncle Petros?

His sin, indeed, had been Pride. And the pride was still there, nowhere more apparent than in his inability to come face to face with himself.

Actually, we were at the other extreme from giants: we had become dwarfs! And I mean this quite literally. For, often, the right way to philosophize is to make yourself artificially stupid! Only by being "stupid" can you break the barrier of the seemingly obvious.

mathematics as a tree with strong roots (the Axioms), a solid trunk (Rigorous Proof) and ever growing branches blooming with wondrous flowers (the Theorems).

Truth is not always provable!

Intuition,’ he answered with a shrug. ‘It is the only tool left to the mathematician in the absence of proof.

The proverbial ‘mad mathematician’ was more fact than fancy.

The amalgam of Truth and Beauty revealed through the understanding of an important theorem cannot be attained through any other human activity, unless it be (I wouldn’t know) that of mystical religion.