For Any Serious Purpose, Intelligence Is A

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.

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.

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.

I Wrote A Great Deal During The Next Ten [early] Years,but Very Little Of Any Importance; There Are Not More Than Four Or Five Papers Which I Can Still Remember With Some Satisfaction.

It Is Not Worth An Intelligent Man's Time To Be In The Majority. By Definition, There Are Already Enough People To Do That.