A Mathematician ... Has No Material To

What We Do May Be Small, But It Has A Certain Character Of Permanence; And To Have Produced Anything Of The Slightest Permanent Interest, Whether It Be A Copy Of Verses Or A Geometrical Theorem, Is To Have Done Something Utterly Beyond The Powers Of The Vast Majority Of Men.

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.

A Mathematician, Like A Painter Or A Poet, Is A Maker Of Patterns.

The "seriousness" Of A Mathematical Theorem Lies, Not In Its Practical Consequences, Which Are Usually Negligible, But In The Significance Of The Mathematical Ideas Which It Connects.

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.