Euclid’s Elements Quotes

“Mathematics”

“Golden ratio”

“History of mathematics”

“Ancient Greek mathematics”

“Circles are to one another as the squares on the diameters.”

“Similar polygons inscribed in circles are to one another as the squares on the diameters.”

“The sacred writings excepted, no Greek has been so much read and so variously translated as Euclid.”

“Wikipedia: Euclid’s Elements”

“Wikisource: The Elements of Euclid”

“Wikicommons: Elements of Euclid”

“No one has ever given so easy and natural a chain of geometrical consequences [as Euclid]. There is a never-erring truth in the results.”

“In right angled triangles the square on the side subtending the right angle is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle.”

“Euclid's Elements is certainly one of the greatest books ever written, and one of the most perfect monuments of the Greek intellect.”

“The thirteen books of Euclid must have been a tremendous advance, probably even greater than that contained in the “Principia” of Newton,”

“The Elements of Euclid is as small a part of mathematics as the Iliad is of literature; or as the sculpture of Phidias is of the world’s total art.”

“Comparatively few of the propositions and proofs in the Elements are his [Euclid's] own discoveries. In fact, the proof of the "Theorem of Pythagoras" is the only one directly ascribed to him.”

“It is a remarkable fact in the history of geometry, that the Elements of Euclid, written two thousand years ago, are still regarded by many as the best introduction to the mathematical sciences.”

“Kepler followed Proclus and believed that 'the main goal of Euclid was to build a geometric theory of the so-called Platonic solids.'”

“If we consider him [Euclid] as meaning to be what his commentators have taken him to be, a model of the most unscrupulous formal rigour, we can deny that he has altogether succeeded, though we admit that he made the nearest approach.”

“Geometry is nothing if it be not rigorous, and the whole educational value of the study is lost, if strictness of demonstration be trifled with. The methods of Euclid are, by almost universal consent, unexceptionable in point of rigour.”