A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way 'trivial' mathemat ics.

However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves , there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful 'important' ... Hardy It is true that Mr. Fourier had the opinion that the principal purpose of mathem atics was the benefit of the society and the explanation of phenomena of nature; but a philosopher like he should know that the sole purpose of science is the h onor of the human mind, and under this title, a question about numbers is as val uable as a question about the system of the world. C. G. Jacobi In most sciences one generation tears down what another has built, and what one has established, another undoes. In Mathematics alone each generation adds a new storey to the old structure. Hermann Hankel There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go th ere alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commi t suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics. B. Russell Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between th e ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no p ractical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity embodying in splendid edifices the passionate aspiration after the perfect from which all great work s prings. Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature , the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos, where pure thought c an dwell as in its natural home, and where one, at least, of our nobler impulses can escape from the dreary exile of the actual world. B. Russell The love of system, of interconnection, which is perhaps the inmost essence of t he intellectual impulse, can find free play in mathematics as nowhere else. B. Russell ...for me, one starts to become a mathematician more or less through an act of rebellion. In what sense? In the sense that the future mathematician will sta rt to think about a certain problem, and he will notice that, in fact, what he h as read in the literature, what he has read in books, doesn't correspond to his personal vision of the problem. Naturally, this is very often the result of igno rance, but that is not important so long as his arguments are based on personal intuition and, of course, on proof. So it doesn't matter, because in this way he 'll learn that in mathematics there is no supreme authority! A twelve-year-old p upil can very well oppose his teacher if he finds a proof of what he argues, and that differentiates mathematics from other disciplines, where the teacher can e asily hide behind knowledge that the pupil doesn't have. A child of five can say , "Daddy, there isn't any biggest number" and can be certain of it, not because he read it in a book but because he has found a proof in his mind... A. Connes Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey in

to a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost. Rigour should be a signal to the historian that the maps have been made, and the real explorers hav e gone elsewhere. W. S. Anglin To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it. Aristotle [On the concept of group:] ... what a wealth, what a grandeur of thought may spring from what slight beginn ings. H. F. Baker Abstractness, sometimes hurled as a reproach at mathematics, is its chief glory and its surest title to practical usefulness. It is also the source of such beau ty as may spring from mathematics. Eric Temple Bell Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an in definable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ult imate usefulness. Eric Temple Bell It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences. Eric Temple Bell Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe. Janos Bolyai As for everything else, so for a mathematical theory: beauty can be perceived bu t not explained. Arthur Cayley Thus metaphysics and mathematics are, among all the sciences that belong to reas on, those in which imagination has the greatest role. I beg pardon of those deli cate spirits who are detractors of mathematics for saying this .... The imaginat ion in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who i nvents .... Of all the great men of antiquity, Archimedes may be the one who mos t deserves to be placed beside Homer. Jean D'Alembert ...we believe in the reality of mathematics, but of course when philosophers att ack us with their paradoxes we rush to hide behind formalism and say "mathematic s is just a combination of meaningless symbols" . . . Finally we are left in pea ce to go back to our mathematics, with the feeling each mathematician has that h e is working on something real. Jean Dieudonn

It is a well-kept secret that doing mathematics really is fun--at least for math ematicians--and I am amazed at how often we use the word "beautiful" to describe work that satisfies us. I am reminded of a remark by a mathematician . . . who was talking with some anthropologists about early human experiments with fire. O ne anthropologist suggested that these humans were motivated by a desire for bet ter cooking; another thought they were after a dependable source of heat. [The m athematician] said he believed fire came under human control because of their fa scination with the flame. I believe that the best mathematicians are fascinated by the flame, and that this is a good thing . . . [b]ecause, fortunately for soc iety, their fascination has, in the end, provided the good cooking and reliable heat we all need. Philip A. Griffiths The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's must be beautiful ; the ideas, like the colors or the words must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in this world for ugly ma thematics. G. H. Hardy Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultur al world is one country. D. Hilbert I have tried to avoid long numerical computations, thereby following Riemann's p ostulate that proofs should be given through ideas and not voluminous computatio ns. D. Hilbert From the intrinsic evidence of his creation, the Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician. Sir James Jeans When asked what it was like to set about proving something, the mathematician li kened proving a theorem to seeing the peak of a mountain and trying to climb to the top. One establishes a base camp and begins scaling the mountain's sheer fac e, encountering obstacles at every turn, often retracing one's steps and struggl ing every foot of the journey. Finally when the top is reached, one stands exami ning the peak, taking in the view of the surrounding countryside and then noting the automobile road up the other side! Robert J. Kleinhenz Many people who have never had occasion to learn what mathematics is confuse it with arithmetic and consider it a dry and arid science. In actual fact it is the science which demands the utmost imagination. One of the foremost mathematician s of our century says very justly that it is impossible to be a mathematician wi thout also being a poet in spirit. . . . It seems to me that the poet must see w hat others do not see, must see more deeply than other people. And the mathemati cian must do the same. Sofya Kovalevskaya Most of the arts, as painting, sculpture, and music, have emotional appeal to th e general public. This is because these arts can be experienced by some one or m ore of our senses. Such is not true of the art of mathematics; this art can be a

ppreciated only by mathematicians, and to become a mathematician requires a long period of intensive training. The community of mathematicians is similar to an imaginary community of musical composers whose only satisfaction is obtained by the interchange among themselves of the musical scores they compose. Cornelius Lanczos The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently wit h purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our de scription of the physical universe. Karl Pearson Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects. Thus, they a re free to replace some objects by others so long as the relations remain unchan ged. Content to them is irrelevant: they are interested in form only. Henri Poincare Even fairly good students, when they have obtained the solution of the problem a nd written down neatly the argument, shut their books and look for something els e. Doing so, they miss an important and instructive phase of the work. ... A goo d teacher should understand and impress on his students the view that no problem whatever is completely exhausted. One of the first and foremost duties of the teacher is not to give his students the impression that mathematical problems have little connection with each other , and no connection at all with anything else. We have a natural opportunity to investigate the connections of a problem when looking back at its solution. George Polya We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of "proving theorems." Is a write r's job mainly that of "writing sentences?" Gian-Carlo Rota The question you raise, "how can such a formulation lead to computations?" doesn 't bother me in the least! Throughout my whole life as a mathematician, the poss ibility of making explicit, elegant computations has always come out by itself, as a byproduct of a thorough conceptual understanding of what was going on. Thus I never bothered about whether what would come out would be suitable for this o r that, but just tried to understand - and it always turned out that understandi ng was all that mattered. Alexander Grothendieck Rigour is to the mathematician what morality is to men. Andre Weil The science of pure mathematics may claim to be the most original creation of th e human spirit. Alfred North Whitehead I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without pr ofound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Ham let from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is si ngularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming

... and a little mad. Alfred North Whitehead Perhaps I could best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of ent ering a dark mansion. You go into the first room and it's dark, completely dark. You stumble around, bumping into furniture. Gradually, you learn where each pie ce of furniture is, and, finally, after six months or so, you find the light swi tch and turn it on. Suddenly, it's all illuminated and you know exactly where yo u were. Then you enter the next dark room.... Andrew Wiles