[951]. ... καί φασιν ὅτι Πτολεμαῖος ἤρετό ποτε αύτόν [Εὐκλειδην], εἴ τίς ἐστιν περὶ γεωμετρίαν ὁδὸς συντομωτέρα τῆς στοιχειώσεως· ὁδὲ ἀπεκρὶνατο μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν ἀτραπὸν ἐπὶ γεωμετρίαν.
[ ... they say that Ptolemy once asked him (Euclid) whether there was in geometry no shorter way than that of the elements, and he replied, “There is no royal road to geometry.”]—Proclus.
(Edition Friedlein, 1873), Prol. II, 39.
[952]. Someone who had begun to read geometry with Euclid, when he had learned the first proposition, asked Euclid, “But what shall I get by learning these things?” whereupon Euclid called his slave and said, “Give him three-pence, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”—Stobæus.
(Edition Wachsmuth, 1884), Ecl. II.
[953]. The sacred writings excepted, no Greek has been so much read and so variously translated as Euclid.[5]—De Morgan, A.
Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biology and Mythology (London, 1902), Article, “Eucleides.”
[954]. The thirteen books of Euclid must have been a tremendous advance, probably even greater than that contained in the “Principia” of Newton.—De Morgan, A.
Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (London, 1902), Article, “Eucleides.”
[955]. To suppose that so perfect a system as that of Euclid’s Elements was produced by one man, without any preceding model or materials, would be to suppose that Euclid was more than man. We ascribe to him as much as the weakness of human understanding will permit, if we suppose that the inventions in geometry, which had been made in a tract of preceding ages, were by him not only carried much further, but digested into so admirable a system, that his work obscured all that went before it, and made them be forgot and lost.—Reid, Thomas.