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A (38) B (44) C (35) D (64) E (53) F (14) G (42) H (79) I (3) J (22) K (29) L (47) M (29) N (18) O (4) P (89) Q (1) R (37) S (40) T (16) U (1) V (8) W (63) Y (1) Z (1)
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colors or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
Young men should prove theorems; old men should write books.
Quoted by Freeman Dyson in Freeman Dyson: Mathematician, Physicist, and Writer. Interview with Donald J. Albers, The College Mathematics Journal, vol. 25, No. 1, January 1994.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
In great mathematics there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure mathematics.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game.
A Mathematician's Apology, London, Cambridge University Press, 1941.
Hardy, Godfrey H. (1877 - 1947)
[On Ramanujan:]
I remember once going to see him when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No," he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
Ramanujan, London: Cambridge University Press, 1940.
Hamming, Richard W.
Mathematics is an interesting intellectual sport but it should not be allowed to stand in the way of obtaining sensible information about physical processes.
In N. Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims, Raleigh NC: Rome Press Inc., 1988.

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