Robert Musil

1880–1942 · Austrian philosophical writer

Topics: mathematics

• Mathematics is the bold luxury of pure reason, one of the few that remain today.

  — Robert Musil

• In their field they [mathematicians] do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson … of their existence. They are an analogy for the intellectual of the future.

  — Robert Musil

• Mathematics is the source of a wicked intellect that, while making man the lord of the earth, also makes him the slave of the machine.

  — Robert Musil