Just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts.
Henri Poincare

Mathematical discoveries, small or great are never born of spontaneous generation.
Henri Poincare

Mathematicians are born, not made.
Henri Poincare

Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects.
Henri Poincare

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.
Henri Poincare

Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?
Henri Poincare

No more than these machines need the mathematician know what he does.
Henri Poincare

One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics.
Henri Poincare

Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.
Henri Poincare

Science is built up of facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henri Poincare

Science is facts.
Henri Poincare

The mathematical facts worthy of being studied are those which, by their analogy with other facts, are capable of leading us to the knowledge of a physical law.
Henri Poincare

The mind uses its faculty for creativity only when experience forces it to do so.
Henri Poincare

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
Henri Poincare

Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
Henri Poincare

Thus, they are free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchanged.
Henri Poincare

To doubt everything, or, to believe everything, are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Henri Poincare

To invent is to discern, to choose.
Henri Poincare

What is it indeed that gives us the feeling of elegance in a solution, in a demonstration?
Henri Poincare