We have admittedly defined the infinite in arithmetic by a loveknot, in this manner ∞; but …

We have admittedly defined the infinite in arithmetic by a loveknot, in this manner ∞; but we possess not therefore the clearer notion of it.

— Voltaire (François Marie Arouet) (French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher, 1694 – 1778), in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764): Infinity