Mathematics Is Not A Contemplative But A

Sometimes One Has To Say Difficult Things, But One Ought To Say Them As Simply As One Knows How.

There Is No Scorn More Profound, Or On The Whole More Justifiable, Than That Of The Men Who Make For The Men Who Explain.

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

Mathematics Is Not A Contemplative But A Creative Subject; No One Can Draw Much Consolation From It When He Has Lost The Power Or The Desire To Create; And That Is Apt To Happen To A Mathematician Rather Soon. It Is A Pity, But In That Case He Does Not Matter A Great Deal Anyhow, And It Would Be Silly To Bother About Him.

I Remember Once Going To See Him [ramanujan] When He Was Lying Ill At Putney. I Had Ridden In Taxi-cab No. 1729, And Remarked That The Number Seemed To Me Rather A Dull One, And That I Hoped It Was Not An Unfavourable Omen. "no," He Replied, "it Is A Very Interesting Number; It Is The Smallest Number Expressible As A Sum Of Two Cubes In Two Different Ways."