Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics. G. H. Hardy More Quotes by G. H. Hardy More Quotes From G. H. Hardy A science or an art may be said to be "useful" if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort of men, it promotes happiness, using that word in a crude and commonplace way. G. H. Hardy men science art There is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. G. H. Hardy he-man men profound The mathematician is in much more direct contact with reality. ... [Whereas] the physicist's reality, whatever it may be, has few or none of the attributes which common sense ascribes instinctively to reality. A chair may be a collection of whirling electrons. G. H. Hardy common-sense science reality I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof. G. H. Hardy good-man waste example 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. G. H. Hardy sacrifice math love I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively. G. H. Hardy passion boys science A person’s first duty, a young person’s at any rate, is to be ambitious, and the noblest ambition is that of leaving behind something of permanent value. G. H. Hardy ambitious leaving ambition If intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition are the dominant incentives to research, then assuredly no one has a fairer chance of gratifying them than a mathematician. G. H. Hardy pride ambition science Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject. G. H. Hardy contemplative mathematics creative Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand... So Greek mathematics is 'permanent', more permanent even than Greek literature. G. H. Hardy understanding real science Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject; no one can draw much consolation from it when he has lost the power or the desire to create; and that is apt to happen to a mathematician rather soon. It is a pity, but in that case he does not matter a great deal anyhow, and it would be silly to bother about him. G. H. Hardy creative desire silly Most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity. G. H. Hardy names math people Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books. G. H. Hardy math writing book A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas. G. H. Hardy unique education math Cricket is the only game where you are playing against eleven of the other side and ten of your own. G. H. Hardy cricket games sides [Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This may be true; indeed it is probable, since the sensational triumphs of Einstein, that stellar astronomy and atomic physics are the only sciences which stand higher in popular estimation. G. H. Hardy triumph study may The case for my life... is this: that I have added something to knowledge, and helped others to add more G. H. Hardy cases life-is add 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. G. H. Hardy taught technique sensual No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. G. H. Hardy purpose numbers years The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful. G. H. Hardy patterns math beautiful
