Before one can generalize, formalize, and axiomatize, there must be a mathematical substance.

Symmetry, as wide or as narrow as you may define its meaning, is one idea by which man through the ages has tried to comprehend and create order, beauty and perfection.

Logic is the hygiene the mathematician practices to keep his ideas healthy and strong.

Besides language and music, mathematics is one of the primary manifestations of the free creative power of the human mind.

God exists because arithmetic is consistent - the Devil exists because we can't prove it!

... numbers have neither substance, nor meaning, nor qualities. They are nothing but marks, and all that is in them we have put into them by the simple rule of straight succession.

Mathematics has the inhuman quality of starlight, brilliant and sharp, but cold.

You can not apply mathematics as long as words still becloud reality.

Our mathematics of the last few decades has wallowed in generalities and formalizations.

In geometric and physical applications, it always turns out that a quantity is characterized not only by its tensor order, but also by symmetry.

A modern mathematical proof is not very different from a modern machine, or a modern test setup: the simple fundamental principles are hidden and almost invisible under a mass of technical details.

A poet can imagine an iceberg singing a melancholic song while the world leaders find it difficult to imagine proper solution to global warming.

But there were certain early days in Casterbridge- days of firmamental exhaustion which followed angry south-westerly tempests-when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet.

Lyndon B. Johnson thought he'd have the boys home from Vietnam by Christmas - for four Christmases in a row (he never shifted course, and lost his presidency for it).

I think faith is vitally important to your day, your seconds in each day. Faith helps to get you through the day.

You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don’t open them.

Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?

Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.

I'm really open to anything that's good. If I read something and it's good, and I like the director, it never really needs to be a specific type of character.

That's the thing that most people don't realize. In real life, comedians aren't funny. They save it. They save it up.