"You must not be cleverer than your elders. It is not polite."

"Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve
like a bell, there must be an equation for one
like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a
rose? Do we believe nature is written in
numbers?"Thomasina Coverly: Young, innocent, and just the
littlest bit smart-mouthed. Her mother
declares her prematurely pert; her tutor knows
she is a genius. A fairly ordinary teenage
girl, with a crush on Lord Byron and a love for
waltzing... and also a phenomenal mathematical
and scientific talent, encompassing
determinism, the laws of thermodynamics, and
fractals. From Arcadia.

Which Stoppard Protagonist Are You?
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They ought to have put in the rest of that exchange:

THOMASINA:…Do we believe nature is written in numbers?
SEPTIMUS: We do.
THOMASINA: Then why do your equations only describe the shapes of manufacture?
SEPTIMUS: I do not know.
THOMASINA: Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet.

I could quote this play all day long.

CHLOE:…The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it’s trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be in that part of the plan.
VALENTINE: Ah. The attraction that Newton left out.