Carl Friedrich Gauss Mathematical Quotations

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.

A reply to Olbers' attempt in 1816 to entice him to work on Fermat's Theorem. I confess that Fermat's Theorem as an isolated proposition has very little interest for me, because I could easily lay down a multitude of such propositions, which one could neither prove nor dispose of. []