Pastoral Resources

Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.

It would be better for the true physics if there were no mathematicians on earth.

The only thing that might have annoyed some mathematicians was the presumption of assuming that maybe the axiom of choice could fail, and that we should look into contrary assumptions.

Therefore I would not have it unknown to Your Holiness, the the only thing which induced me to look for another way of reckoning the movements of the heavenly bodies was that I knew that mathematicians by no means agree in their investigation thereof.

Mathematics is written for mathematicians.

Many mathematicians derive part of their self-esteem by feeling themselves the proud heirs of a long tradition of rational thinking; I am afraid they idealize their cultural ancestors.

Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.

Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; the poorer mathematicians had better remain pure mathematicians.

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulders.

It may be true, that men, who are mere mathematicians, have certain specific shortcomings, but that is not the fault of mathematics, for it is equally true of every other exclusive occupation.

The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.

Physicists are more like avant-garde composers, willing to bend traditional rules... Mathematicians are more like classical composers.

The truth has never been of any real value to any human being - it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for 500 years.

For example, the philosophers who were interested in logic were probably rather logical for mathematicians. But the ASL got us together, so we could talk to each other and publish in the same journal.

As I say, there was this movement to try to bring philosophers and mathematicians together into an organization where they would talk to each other. An organization wasn't effective unless you had a journal. That's about all I know.

The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure.

Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, but largely went their own way.

Mathematicians may flatter themselves that they possess new ideas which mere human language is as yet unable to express.