In part, students should study mathematics for the same reasons that they study Darwin, Marx, Voltaire, or Dostoyevsky: These ideas are a basic part of our culture; these ideas have shaped how we perceive the world and how we perceive our place in the world. 

Eric Schechter

Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.

Gottfreid Wilhelm Leibniz