For Any Serious Purpose, Intelligence Is A

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.

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

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.

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.

In [great Mathematics] There Is A Very High Degree Of Unexpectedness, Combined With Inevitability And Economy.