Most People Can Do Nothing At All

It Is Hardly Possible To Maintain Seriously That The Evil Done By Science Is Not Altogether Outweighed By The Good. For Example, If Ten Million Lives Were Lost In Every War, The Net Effect Of Science Would Still Have Been To Increase The Average Length Of Life.

The Mathematician's Patterns, Like The Painter's Or The Poet's Must Be Beautiful; The Ideas, Like The Colours Or The Words Must Fit Together In A Harmonious Way. Beauty Is The First Test: There Is No Permanent Place In The World For Ugly Mathematics.

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.

It Is Rather Astonishing How Little Practical Value Scientific Knowledge Has For Ordinary Men, How Dull And Commonplace Such Of It As Has Value Is, And How Its Value Seems Almost To Vary Inversely To Its Reputed Utility.

When The World Is Mad, A Mathematician May Find In Mathematics An Incomparable Anodyne. For Mathematics Is, Of All The Arts And Sciences, The Most Austere And The Most Remote, And A Mathematician Should Be Of All Men The One Who Can Most Easily Take Refuge Where, As Bertrand Russell Says, "one At Least Of Our Nobler Impulses Can Best Escape From The Dreary Exile Of The Actual World."