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Who really said it

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was able to reason

Not Stephen Hawking — actually Plato Plato c. 427 – c. 347 BC · Athenian philosopher, founder of the Academy
Disputed as to Hawking, who is out by roughly 2,350 years. The Plato attribution itself is solid. Free to reuse

The line comes from Book VII of Plato’s Republic, at Stephanus page 531e, written around 375 BC. Two further precisions the internet version loses: inside the dialogue the remark is Glaucon’s, not Socrates’, and Benjamin Jowett’s standard English rendering reads “capable of reasoning,” not “able to reason.”

Last verified 16 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was able to reason” — Plato · Verbatim: “I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Stephen Hawking. Use the credit shown above instead.

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Provenance

The source

Work
The Republic, Book VII (531e)
Author
Plato
Written
c. 375 BC
Translation
Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893)
Spoken by
Glaucon, replying to Socrates — not Socrates himself

What do you mean? I said; the prelude or what? Do you not know that all this is but the prelude to the actual strain which we have to learn? For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician?

Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

Quoted from Jowett’s translation as published in Project Gutenberg eBook #1497 ↗, which we read directly. Note the wording: Jowett has “capable of reasoning.” The version that circulates under Hawking’s name says “able to reason.”

The Republic, trans. Jowett — full text

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote’s Stephen Hawking page ↗ lists this sentence in its Misattributed section and reassigns it in one line: “Plato, The Republic, Book VII, 531-E.”
  • We confirmed that against the primary text rather than taking it on trust. In Benjamin Jowett’s translation on Project Gutenberg ↗, Book VII runs: “For you surely would not regard the skilled mathematician as a dialectician? / Assuredly not, he said; I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.”
  • The “he said” matters. Socrates is the narrator of the Republic, so the line is his interlocutor’s — Glaucon ↗, Plato’s brother. Jowett’s own running analysis of the book confirms it, giving Glaucon the reply “I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.” Attributing the jibe to Socrates is a second, quieter error.
  • The famous phrasing is Jowett’s, not Plato’s. Jowett himself renders it two ways in one volume (“capable of reasoning” in the dialogue, “could reason” in his analysis), and Paul Shorey’s Loeb translation of 1935 ↗ does not contain the word “mathematician” here at all — we read it, and at 531e it runs “…suppose that experts in these matters are reasoners and dialecticians?” “No, by Zeus,” he said, “except a very few whom I have met.” We found no published translation reading exactly “able to reason”; that wording looks like a loose retelling of Jowett that hardened as it spread.
Public domain

The Greek original is roughly 2,400 years old. The English shown here is Benjamin Jowett’s ↗ translation; Jowett died in 1893 and the translation is nineteenth-century, so it is comfortably in the United States public domain — which is why Project Gutenberg ↗ can publish it in full. Note that later translations are a different matter: Shorey’s Loeb version was first published in 1930–35 and is not equivalently free.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The line reads like a physicist needling his own field, which is most of why it ended up under Stephen Hawking’s name.

Stephen Hawking Refuted

Hawking was born in 1942. Wikiquote ↗ lists the sentence among his Misattributed quotations and points to Plato’s Republic, Book VII, 531-E — a text older by some 2,350 years.

Socrates Context

Even people who correctly trace the line to the Republic tend to give it to Socrates, who narrates the dialogue. In Jowett’s text ↗ the remark is the reply Socrates receives — Glaucon’s, not his.

“able to reason” Context

The circulating sentence is not quite any published translation. Jowett ↗ has “capable of reasoning” in the dialogue and “could reason” in his analysis; we found no edition reading “able to reason.”

It is Plato’s, it is about 2,350 years older than the man usually credited with it, and in the dialogue it is Glaucon who says it. Read Book VII in full ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

The remark is not a joke about mathematicians being stupid. In Book VII Socrates is arguing that arithmetic, geometry and astronomy are only the prelude to the real subject — dialectic, the discipline of giving and taking an account of why something is true. Glaucon agrees a little too eagerly, and the jibe is his way of conceding that technical skill and genuine reasoning come apart.

That is also why it has survived: it is one of the oldest surviving statements of a complaint every technical field still makes about itself. Which makes it unusually easy to mistake for something a modern physicist said last week.

Technical skill is the prelude, not the strain.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Knowledge Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Stephen Hawking on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists this line under Misattributed and reassigns it to Plato, Republic VII, 531-E.
The Republic, trans. Jowett (full text)gutenberg.org

The public-domain translation we read to confirm the wording, the speaker and the surrounding argument.
Republic (Plato)en.wikipedia.org

Background on the dialogue, its approximate date of c. 375 BC, and its cast including Glaucon.
Plato on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Plato’s dates and a sourced collection of his lines.
Benjamin Jowetten.wikipedia.org

The Victorian translator (1817–1893) whose rendering underlies almost every English quotation of the Republic.
The Republic, trans. Paul Shorey (Loeb, vol. 2, 1935)archive.org

The Loeb parallel-text volume covering Book VII. Its 531e reads “No, by Zeus … except a very few whom I have met” — showing the familiar English phrasing is Jowett’s, not Plato’s.

The author

About Plato

Plato

c. 427 – c. 347 BC · Athenian philosopher, founder of the Academy

Plato was an Athenian philosopher, a student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and the founder of the Academy. He wrote in dialogue rather than treatise, which is precisely why quoting him is treacherous: the words on the page belong to characters, and the character speaking is often not Socrates and often not endorsed by Plato. The Republic, written around 375 BC, is his longest and most quoted work.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Plato. The Republic, Book VII, 531e. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Project Gutenberg eBook #1497. Jowett’s dialogue text reads “I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning”; the line is spoken by Glaucon.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was able to reason’?” Last verified 16 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-have-hardly-ever-known-a-mathematician-who-was-able-to/

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