Gerolamo Cardano quotes

Gerolamo Cardano was an Italian mathematician, physician, and polymath, widely recognized for his contributions to algebra and probability. His groundbreaking work, especially the publication of the solutions to cubic and quartic equations, had a profound impact on mathematics. He also made significant advances in medicine, mechanics, and philosophy. Here are 26 of his quotes:

I have not lost my faith; and this I must attribute more to a miracle than to my own wisdom; more to Divine Providence than to my own virtue. Steadfastly, in fact from my earliest childhood, I have made this my prayer, "Lord God... grant me long life, and wisdom, and health of mind and body."

Gerolamo Cardano

Better it is to have the worst, than none at all.

Gerolamo Cardano

Among other myseries what I pray you tá be greater than whē a man riseth frō bed in the morning, to be incertaine of his returne to rest againe. or being in bed, whether his life shall continue tyll he ryse. besydes that, what labour, what hazard & care, are men constrained to abyde with these our brittle bodies, our feeble force, and incertayne lyfe: so as no nacion I thinke a man better or more fitlye named than the Spaniard, who in their language do terme a man shadow. And sure ther is nothing to be found of lesse assurance or soner passed than the lyfe of man, no... may more rightly be resembled to a shadow.

Gerolamo Cardano

And wel we see ther is none alive that in every respect may be accompted happie, yea though mortall men were free from all calamities, yet the torments & feare of death should stil attend them But b:sides them, behold, what, and how manye evilles there bee, that unlesse the cloude of error bee removed, impossible it is to see the truth, or receive allay of our earthly woes.

Gerolamo Cardano

So shall we voyd of all craft and sail, with true reason declare how much each man erreth in life, judgement, opinion, and will. Some things there are that so wel do prove themselves, as besides nature nede no profe at all.

Gerolamo Cardano

From these beginnings, as it were, have issued bitterness, contentious obstinancy, lack of amenity, hasty judgement, anger, and an intense desire for revenge-to say nothing of headstrong will; that which many damn, by word at least, was my delight.

Gerolamo Cardano

I am able to admit two distinct trains of thought to my mind at the same time.

Gerolamo Cardano

My personal affairs are not as highly esteemed as men commonly value their own interests-vain, empty affairs like those great clouds seen in the wake of the sunset which are meaningless and soon pass away.

Gerolamo Cardano

Since this art surpasses all human subtelty and the perspecuity of mortal talent and is truly a celestial gift and a very clear test of the capacity of man's minds, whoever applies himself to it will believe that there is nothing that he cannot understand.

Gerolamo Cardano

What is this complacency then but an ignoring of conditions, a pretense of not being aware of what we know exists, or a will to set aside a fact by force? And so it is with everything else foul, vain, confused and untrue in our lives.

Gerolamo Cardano

Yet I avoid this practice in the presence of my benefactors and of my superiors.

Gerolamo Cardano

This is the knowledge I was able to acquire and learn without any elementary schooling.

Gerolamo Cardano

I have accustomed my features always to assume an expression quite contrary to my feelings; thus I am able to feign outwardly, yet within know nothing of dissumulation. This habit is easy if compared to the practice of hoping for nothing.

Gerolamo Cardano

So necessarie is this gift of consolacion, as there livith no man, but that hathe cause to embrace it. for in these things better is it to have any than none at al.

Gerolamo Cardano

For as positio refers to a line, quadratum to the surface, and cubum to a solid body, it would be very foolish for us to go beyond this point. Nature does no permit it.

Gerolamo Cardano

Better it is to have the worst, than none at all. for example we see, that houses are nedefull, such as can not possese & stately pallaces of stone, do persuade themselves to dwell in houses of timber and clap, and wanting them, are contented to inhabite the simple cotage, yea rather than not to be housed at all refuse not the pore cabbon, and most beggerly cave. So necessarie is this gift of consolacion, as there livith no man, but that hathe cause to embrace it. for in these things better is it to have any than none at al.

Gerolamo Cardano

This I recognize as unique and outstanding among my faults-the habit...of preferring to say above all things what I know to be displeasing to the ears of my hearers. ...I keep it up wilfully, in no way ignorant of how many enemies it makes for me. ...Yet I avoid this practice in the presence of my benefactors and of my superiors. It is enough not to fawn upon these, or at least not to flatter them.

Gerolamo Cardano

My father, in my earliest childhood, taught me the rudiments of arithmetic, and about that time made me acquainted with the arcana; whence he had come by this learning I know not. This was about my ninth year. Shortly after, he instructed me in the elements of the astronomy of Arabia, meanwhile trying to instill in me some system of theory for memorizing, for I had been poorly endowed with the ability to remember. After I was twelve years old he taught me the first six books of Euclid, but in such a manner that he expended no effort on such parts as I was able to understand by myself. This is the knowledge I was able to acquire and learn without any elementary schooling...

Gerolamo Cardano

After spending a year or so in France, Scotland, and England, he returned to Milan as professor of science, and shortly afterward was elected to a chair at Pavia. Here he divided his time between debauchery, astrology, and mechanics. His two sons were as wicked and passionate as himself: the elder was in 1560 executed for poisoning his wife, and about the same time Cardan in a fit of rage cut off the ears of the younger who committed some offence; for this scandelous outrage he suffered no punishment, as Pope Gregory XIII granted him protection.

Gerolamo Cardano

The Ars Magna is a great advance on any algebra previously published. Hitherto algebraists had confined their attention to those roots of equations which were positive. Cardan discussed negative and even complex roots, and proved that the latter would always occur in pairs, though he declined to commit himself to any explanation as to the meaning of these "sophistic" quantities which he said were ingenious though useless.

Gerolamo Cardano

He... gave thirteen forms of the cubic which have positive roots, these having already been given by Omar Kayyam.

Gerolamo Cardano

The application of the theory [of probability] to mortality tables in any large way may be said to have started with John Graunt... The first tables of great importance, however, were those of Edmund Halley... however... Cardan seems to have been the first to have been the first to consider the problem in a printed work, although his treatment is very fanciful. He gives a brief table in his proposition "Spatium vitae naturalis per spatium vitae fortuitum declarare," this appearing in the De Proportionibus Libri V...

Gerolamo Cardano