Robert Boyle...of the usefulness of mathematicks
...I consider that without understanding as much of the abstruser part of geometry, as Archimedes or Apollonius, one may understand enough to be assisted by it in the contemplation of nature; and that one needs not know the profoundest mysteries of it to be able to discern its usefulness...I confess that after I began...to discern how useful mathematicks may be made to physicks, I have often wished that I had employed about the speculative part of geometry, and the cultivation of the specious Algebra I had been taught very young, a good part of that time I spent about surveying and fortification...and other practick parts of mathematicks.
- Of the Usefulness of Mathematicks...1663