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Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. "Immortality" may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.

— G. H. Hardy A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

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Mathematics

More quotes by G. H. Hardy

A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.

A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

If I knew I was going to die today, I think I should still want to hear the cricket scores.

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.

Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.

A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.

A Mathematician's Apology (1941)

All G. H. Hardy quotes →

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

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If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

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Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: G. H. Hardy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.