Quotessence
Home / Authors / G. H. Hardy
G. H. Hardy

G. H. Hardy Quotes

Mathematician

Filter quotes by topic

AllMathematicsScienceMathematicianMathematicalMenIfsMathMayMath And ScienceShouldArtDoneFirstsMath EducationMathematics And ScienceMathematics By MathematiciansSubjectsTheoremsIdeasPatterns

Famous G. H. Hardy Quotes

“No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.”

KnowsMenShouldMayHas BeensArtStillsIdeasDoneEnoughAgePastYoungScienceThreeGamesForgetYouthMajorsDiedTwentiesOriginalsMathematicsSevenInstanceMathematicalUselessYoung ManThirtyFiftyFortySixtyMathematicianGreat WorkCompetentTwenty OneOriginal IdeasAbelRamanujanRiemann
Author:G. H. Hardy
Create image

“[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.”

MayReasonStudyHigherMathematicsPhysicsAstronomyBeing TrueTriumphProfitableEstimationSensationalPraiseworthyStellar
Author:G. H. Hardy
Create image

“I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world... Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And that I have created something is undeniable: the question is about its value.”

WorldMayMadeDoneLife IsValuesDifferencesChanceMinesCreatingStandardsDiscoveryMathematicsIllPracticalsMathematicalJust OneJudgedEscapingVerdictTrivialityOne ChanceAmenities
Author:G. H. Hardy
Create image

“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.”

LoveMayPlayGamesPiecesPlayerSacrificeOffersWeaponsMathematicsMathChessMathematicalAdsMathematicianFinestPawnsMath And ScienceChess PlayersMath EducationMathematics By MathematiciansEuclidMath LoveMath And LoveGambit
Book:A Mathematician's Apology
Create image

“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.”

WayMayWantedRememberSciencePassionFeltTermBoysCareersBeatsMathematicsNotionNobleMathematicianExaminationScholarship
Book:A Mathematician's Apology
Create image

“When the world is mad, a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne. For mathematics is, of all the arts and sciences, the most austere and the most remote, and a mathematician should be of all men the one who can most easily take refuge where, as Bertrand Russell says, "one at least of our nobler impulses can best escape from the dreary exile of the actual world."”

MenWorldShouldMayArtScienceMathematicsMadImpulseRefugeMathematicianExileArt And ScienceDrearyIncomparable
Book:A Mathematician's Apology
Create image