No Mathematician Should Ever Allow Himself To

I Propose To Put Forward An Apology For Mathematics; And I May Be Told That It Needs None, Since There Are Now Few Studies More Generally Recognized, For Good Reasons Or Bad, As Profitable And Praiseworthy.

In [great Mathematics] There Is A Very High Degree Of Unexpectedness, Combined With Inevitability And Economy.

Bradman Is A Whole Class Above Any Batsman Who Has Ever Lived: If Archimedes, Newton And Gauss Remain In The Hobbs Class, I Have To Admit The Possibility Of A Class Above Them, Which I Find Difficult To Imagine. They Had Better Be Moved From Now On Into The Bradman Class.

I Count Maxwell And Einstein, Eddington And Dirac, Among "real" Mathematicians. The Great Modern Achievements Of Applied Mathematics Have Been In Relativity And Quantum Mechanics, And These Subjects Are At Present At Any Rate, Almost As "useless" As The Theory Of Numbers.

[i Was Advised] To Read Jordan's 'cours D'analyse'; And I Shall Never Forget The Astonishment With Which I Read That Remarkable Work, The First Inspiration For So Many Mathematicians Of My Generation, And Learnt For The First Time As I Read It What Mathematics Really Meant.