The most valuable acquisitions in a scientific or technical education are the general-purpose mental tools which remain serviceable for a life-time. (George Forsythe, “What to do till the computer scientist comes”, 1968)

Two ideas lie gleaming on the jeweler’s velvet. The first is the calculus, the second, the algorithm. The calculus and the rich body of mathematical analysis to which it gave rise made modern science possible; but it has been the algorithm that has made possible the modern world. (David Berlinski, The Advent of the Algorithm, 2000)

I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you can not express it in numbers your knowledge is a meagre and unsatisfactory kind : it may be the beginning of knowledge but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. (Lord Kelvin, 1824-1907)

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. (Albert Einstein, 1979-1955)

Science is as far removed from brute force as this sword from a crowbar. (Edward Lytton, 1803-1873, Leila, Book II, Chapter I)

Doing a thing well is often a waste of time. (Robert Byrne, master pool and billiards player and writer)

Whatever man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this - Great God, grant that twice two be not four. (Ivan Turgenev, 1818-1883, Russian novelist and short-story writer)

Plutarch says that Sertorius, in order to teach his soldiers that perseverance and wit are better than brute force, had two horses brought before them, and set two men to pull out their tails. One of the men was a burly Hercules, who tugged and tugged, but all to no purpose; the other was a sharp, weasel-faced tailor, who plucked one hair at a time, amidst roars of laughter, and soon left the tail quite bare. (E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898)

That’s the secret to life… replace one worry with another. (Charles M. Schulz, 1922-2000, American cartoonist, the creator of Peanuts)

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter less. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832)

Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible; reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless. Even the possible can be senseless. (Max Born, 1882-1970, My Life and My Views, 1968)