Archimedes quotes

Archimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, and engineer, renowned for his pioneering work in mathematics and science. His discoveries include the principle of buoyancy and important contributions to geometry and mechanics. He is celebrated as one of the greatest scientists of antiquity. Here are 25 of his quotes:

It follows at once from the last proposition that the centre of gravity of any triangle is at the intersection of the lines drawn from any two angles to the middle points of the opposite sides respectively.

Archimedes

Those who claim to discover everything but produce no proofs of the same may be confuted as having actually pretended to discover the impossible.

Archimedes

Equal weights at equal distances are in equilibrium and equal weights at unequal distances are not in equilibrium but incline towards the weight which is at the greater distance.

Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any parallelogram lies on the straight line joining the middle points of opposite sides.

Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any cylinder is the point of bisection of the axis.

Archimedes

How many theorems in geometry which have seemed at first impracticable are in time successfully worked out!

Archimedes

Two magnitudes whether commensurable or incommensurable, balance at distances reciprocally proportional to the magnitudes.

Archimedes

The centre of gravity of any cone is [the point which divides its axis so that] the portion [adjacent to the vertex is] triple [of the portion adjacent to the base].

Archimedes

I am persuaded that it [The Method of Mechanical Theorems] will be of no little service to mathematics; for I apprehend that some, either of my contemporaries or of my successors, will, by means of the method when once established, be able to discover other theorems in addition, which have not yet occurred to me.

Archimedes

I thought fit to... explain in detail in the same book the peculiarity of a certain method, by which it will be possible... to investigate some of the problems in mathematics by means of mechanics. This procedure is... no less useful even for the proof of the theorems themselves; for certain things first became clear to me by a mechanical method, although they had to be demonstrated by geometry afterwards... But it is of course easier, when we have previously acquired, by the method, some knowledge of the questions, to supply the proof than it is to find it without any previous knowledge.

Archimedes

If two equal weights have not the same centre of gravity, the centre of gravity of both taken together is at the middle point of the line joining their centres of gravity.

Archimedes

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.

Archimedes

Do not disturb my circles!

Archimedes

First then I will set out the very first theorem which became known to me by means of mechanics, namely that Any segment of a section of a right angled cone (i.e., a parabola) is four-thirds of the triangle which has the same base and equal height, and after this I will give each of the other theorems investigated by the same method. Then at the end of the book I will give the geometrical [proofs of the propositions]...

Archimedes

Any segment of a right-angled conoid (i.e., a paraboloid of revolution) cut off by a plane at right angles to the axis is 1½ times the cone which has the same base and the same axis as the segment.

Archimedes

Mathematics reveals its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love, for its own beauty.

Archimedes

Man has always learned from the past. After all, you can't learn history in reverse!

Archimedes

Rise above oneself and grasp the world.

Archimedes

I have found it! or I have got it!, commonly quoted as Eureka!

Archimedes

Eureka! - I have found it!

Archimedes

Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.

Archimedes

Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world.

Archimedes