Ptolemy: "When I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia, food of the gods."
Quoted in C B Boyer, A History of Mathematics (New York 1968)
Diophantus (reportedly writing his own epitaph): "This tomb hold Diophantus Ah, what a marvel! And the tomb tells scientifically the measure of his life. God vouchsafed that he should be a boy for the sixth part of his life; when a twelfth was added, his cheeks acquired a beard; He kindled for him the light of marriage after a seventh, and in the fifth year after his marriage He granted him a son. Alas! late-begotten and miserable child, when he had reached the measure of half his father's life, the chill grave took him. After consoling his grief by this science of numbers for four years, he reached the end of his life.
Quoted in J R Newman (ed.) The World of Mathematics (New York 1956).
Hypatia "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."