Sofia Kovalevskaya

“It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.”

“Say what you know, do what you must, come what may.”

“Many who have never had an opportunity of knowing any more about mathematics confound it with arithmetic, and consider it an arid science. In reality, however, it is a science which requires a great amount of imagination.”

“In my opinion, the feeling of the beautiful is the first and foremost guiding principle in mathematical discoveries.”

“I understood that the hero of the free woman is science.”

“You must be a poet... to be a mathematician.”

“My destiny has been that of a woman who has striven all her life for science.”

“It seems to me that the poet has only to perceive that which others do not perceive, to look deeper than others look. And the mathematician must do the same thing.”