The Works of Euclid, Vol. 1

Euclid lived during the time of Ptolemy Lagus, about the year 272 before the common era; Archimedes often makes mention of him in his own books. When asked by Ptolemy whether there was not a method of learning Geometry easier than his own, Euclid replied: "There is no royal road to Geometry." This is all we know of Euclid; his native land is unknown.

Before Euclid, very many geometers flourished. Euclid was the first of all the Greeks to collect their works, to arrange what he had collected, and to adorn with unshakable demonstrations those things which had been demonstrated in a disorderly fashion.

Euclid had written very many works; of which only the thirteen books of the Elements and the Data survive.

Of all the books that deal with the elements of the sciences, Euclid’s Elements have always been considered the most perfect, having been translated into every language whatsoever.

Cardano says thus of Euclid’s Elements:

The firmness of whose tenets is unshakable, and whose perfection is so absolute, that one would not dare compare any other work to it; from which it comes about that the light of truth shines forth from it so brightly, that only those who are familiar with Euclid seem capable of distinguishing the false from the true in difficult questions.

Pemberton says that he heard Newton more than once lamenting that he had devoted himself entirely to the works of Descartes and other algebraists before he had studied Euclid’s Elements and reflected upon them.

M. Lagrange, whom Europe mourns and will long mourn now that he is gone, used to tell me that Geometry is a dead language; and that he who [has not mastered] Euclid’s Elements...