Semple Math Quotes

Wherever there is a number, there is beauty. ~ Proclus

Sex is like math: Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you don't mult - ~ Alex Sanchez

How's your day so far?"
"Oh, can't complain," he said. "You?"
"Can complain, but won't. ~ Maria Semple

Yes, I was a big math and computer geek, that's true. I was driven by the scholastic side of things. For me, it was all about what I could do with math and computers. ~ Brian Acton

What if angry vectors veer Round your sleeping head, and form. There's never need to fear Violence of the poor world's abstract storm. ~ Robert Penn Warren

Stay alert! Don't let someone's words blind you from their behavior ...
They can say all the right things, they can make you feel things you've never felt before, but don't be fooled; their actions will reveal their true character, desires, and priorities.
Behavior speaks; pay attention to what it tells you. Behavior is math; pay attention to what it reveals. ~ Steve Maraboli

The key to good worldbuilding is leaving out most of what you create. You, as the author, had damn well better know the where all that dragon food comes from, but that doesn't mean that I, as a reader, want to read a five thousand word essay about you explaining it to me. I don't need to see the math, but I can tell by the details you provide whether or not you've thought these things through to their logical conclusions. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

I'd always been the confident guy in school. I was good in math and English, but I was still shy. I couldn't get up and speak in front of people. I was asked to do it when I was 10 years old and I burst out crying. ~ Chris Vance

Every science that has thriven has thriven upon its own symbols: logic, the only science which is admitted to have made no improvements in century after century, is the only one which has grown no symbols. ~ Augustus De Morgan

In short, Mr. Ryan's plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn't pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation's fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity - just empty sermons. ~ David Stockman

Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I. ~ Malak El Halabi

Was it happiness I'd found in my long marriage? Or capitulation? Or is that all happiness is, capitulation? ~ Maria Semple

Math teaches us chaos or order, for god sake? ~ Deyth Banger

There are many different experiences that cause girls to relinquish their true selves. In early adolescence girls learn how important appearance is in defining social acceptability. Attractiveness is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for girls' success. This is an old, old problem. Helen of Troy didn't launch a thousand ships because she was a hard worker. Juliet wasn't loved for her math ability. ~ Mary Pipher

(When God said, "Be fruitful and multiply" [Genesis 1:28], he wasn't giving math homework.) ~ Gregory K. Popcak

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

The analytical geometry of Descartes and the calculus of Newton and Leibniz have expanded into the marvelous mathematical method-more daring than anything that the history of philosophy records-of Lobachevsky and Riemann, Gauss and Sylvester. Indeed, mathematics, the indispensable tool of the sciences, defying the senses to follow its splendid flights, is demonstrating today, as it never has been demonstrated before, the supremacy of the pure reason. ~ Nicholas Murray Butler

Other kids could read, other kids could write, other kids could spell, they could do math. I felt like an alien. I felt like an outcast. I felt like, 'What is going to happen to me?' ~ R. Kelly

Calculus is the most powerful weapon of thought yet devised by the wit of man. ~ Wallace B. Smith

Many schools today are sacrificing social studies, the arts and physical education so children can cover basic subjects like math, English and science. ~ Geoffrey Canada

Chaos umpire sits And by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns: next him high arbiter Chance governs all. ~ John Milton

You have to run as fast as you can just to stay where you are. If you want to get anywhere, you'll have to run much faster. ~ Lewis Carroll

I think math is a hugely creative field, because there are some very well-defined operations that you have to work within. You are, in a sense, straightjacketed by the rules of the mathematics. But within that constrained environment, it's up to you what you do with the symbols. ~ Brian Greene

Children need far more than basic skills in reading, writing, and math, as important as those might be. Children also need to learn how to think for themselves, how to find meaning in what they learn, and how to work and live together. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

Being a winner sometimes has little to do with the score. If your players seize the opportunity to be better today than they were yesterday in softball, in math, in music, in anything worth doing in life, regardless of natural ability, that will make them winners on and off the field. ~ Lawrence Hsieh

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers. ~ John Edensor Littlewood

I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it's only because I struggle with math. ~ Tina Fey

I suppose I felt doomed to be an artist early on because of the way I drew all over the books that I needed for school, from ancient history to math. I was more interested in drawing in the margins than actually doing the work. ~ Nancy Spero

Polarization is just one of many ways group membership can change an individual. Perhaps the most striking effect of group membership is that it can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience," meaning they believe that other people are just as attuned to their appearance and behavior as they are (cue any pimple cream commercial). These perceptions can affect various aspects of their lives. For example, psychologists found that when Asian girls were subtly reminded about their Asian identity, they performed better on math tests. When they were subtly reminded about their gender, however, they performed worse. ~ Alexandra Robbins

But I looked over at him, with his substitute math teacher glasses and hopeful expression, and my smile faded. He hadn't learned yet that things didn't work out just because you wanted then to. ~ Morgan Matson

You can't hide secrets from the future with math. ~ MC Frontalot

Before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned - the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted - nature's answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of the theorist, who finds himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics. Of course, this does not mean that the experimenter does not also engage in theoretical deliberations. The foremost classical example of a major achievement produced by such a division of labor is the creation of spectrum analysis by the joint efforts of Robert Bunsen, the experimenter, and Gustav Kirchhoff, the theorist. Since then, spectrum analysis has been continually developing and bearing ever richer fruit. ~ Max Planck

In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except that it be that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. ~ Roger Bacon

I thought I wanted to be a physicist in high school until I learned that there was much more math than philosophy in it. I assumed I would just sit around all day and think. ~ Bo Burnham

In most countries, attending some kind of early childhood program (i.e., preschool or prekindergarten) led to real and lasting benefits. On average, kids who did so for more than a year scored much higher in math by age fifteen (more than a year ahead of other students). But in the United States, kids' economic backgrounds overwhelmed this advantage. The quality of the early childhood program seemed to matter more than the quantity. ~ Amanda Ripley

Andrew's kissing Amanda again, her back pinned against the door frame, his hands working through a geometry problem where the goal is to find the point of intersection where two legs bisect. People would like math so much more if it involved real life like that. ~ Julia Kent

This country is a lot better at teaching self-esteem than it is at teaching math. ~ William Bennett

A good problem should be more than a mere exercise; it should be challenging and not too easily solved by the student, and it should require some "dreaming" time. ~ Howard Whitley Eves

My math is never sharper as when I meet an old girlfriend with a kid. ~ Kelsey Grammer

Drest had made a careful study of the Discordian philosophy and realized it was the kind of outlandish nonsense that would appeal to the kind of people who made all the trouble in history-brilliant, intellectual, slightly deranged dope fiends and oddball math-and-technology buffs. ~ Robert Anton Wilson

No mathematician in the world would bother making these senseless distinctions: 2 1/2 is a "mixed number " while 5/2 is an "improper fraction." They're EQUAL for crying out loud. They are the exact same numbers and have the exact same properties. Who uses such words outside of fourth grade? ~ Paul Lockhart

And again. I kept clicking until the photograph was demolished, until it was no more than a mosaic of gray tiles, adding up to nothing.
Nothing. Because wasn't that how I felt that day? If you zoom close - if you really get close to someone, if you really get close to yourself - then you
lose the other person, you lose yourself entirely. You get so close you can't see anything anymore. Your mind becomes all these abstract fragments.
English becomes math. ~ David Levithan

One of the first and foremost duties of the teacher is not to give his students the impression that mathematical problems have little connection with each other, and no connection at all with anything else. We have a natural opportunity to investigate the connections of a problem when looking back at its solution. ~ George Polya

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom. ~ Winston Churchill