A Mathematician, Like A Painter Or A

I Was At My Best At A Little Past Forty, When I Was A Professor At Oxford.

There Is Always More In One Of Ramanujan's Formulae Than Meets The Eye, As Anyone Who Sets To Work To Verify Those Which Look The Easiest Will Soon Discover. In Some The Interest Lies Very Deep, In Others Comparatively Near The Surface; But There Is Not One Which Is Not Curious And Entertaining.

A Chess Problem Is Simply An Exercise In Pure Mathematics.

... Philosophy Proper Is A Subject, On The One Hand So Hopelessly Obscure, On The Other So Astonishingly Elementary, That There Knowledge Hardly Counts.

Good Work Is No Done By "humble" Men. It Is One Of The First Duties Of A Professor, For Example, In Any Subject, To Exaggerate A Little Both The Importance Of His Subject And His Own Importance In It. A Man Who Is Always Asking "is What I Do Worth While?" And "am I The Right Person To Do It?" Will Always Be Ineffective Himself And A Discouragement To Others. He Must Shut His Eyes A Little And Think A Little More Of His Subject And Himself Than They Deserve. This Is Not Too Difficult: It Is Harder Not To Make His Subject And Himself Ridiculous By Shutting His Eyes Too Tightly.