Mathematician - Quotations About Mathematicians

Quotations About Mathematicians

The following are quotations about mathematicians, or by mathematicians.

A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems.

—Attributed to both Alfréd Rényi and Paul Erdős

Die Mathematiker sind eine Art Franzosen; redet man mit ihnen, so übersetzen sie es in ihre Sprache, und dann ist es alsobald ganz etwas anderes. (Mathematicians are a sort of Frenchmen; if you talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and then it is immediately something quite different.)

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Each generation has its few great mathematicians...and research harms no one.

—Alfred W. Adler (1930- ), "Mathematics and Creativity"

In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x squared + px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where x squared + px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.

—Edgar Allan Poe, The purloined letter

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.

—G. H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology

Some of you may have met mathematicians and wondered how they got that way.

—Tom Lehrer

It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.

—Sofia Kovalevskaya

There are two ways to do great mathematics. The first is to be smarter than everybody else. The second way is to be stupider than everybody else—but persistent.

—Raoul Bott