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My own supervisor, William Hodge, the creator of the fertile theory of harmonic forms, was not a genius like Ramanujan but resembled Lefschetz.

— Michael Atiyah

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Intelligence

More quotes by Michael Atiyah

Without dreams there is no art, no mathematics, no life.

Poncelet's closure theorem for triangles and circles.

3 Regular Heptagons formed by continuously joining 1 (blue), 2 (red), or 3 (black) points apart, with respective circumscribed circles.

The most important things in life.., whether you're a football player or a virus, is to deter attackers and run away when necessary.

The Role of Beauty in Mathematics (2015)

Only two people in the universe knew what an electron was, you and God, and you've forgotten!

Sir Michael Atiyah, What is a Spinor? (2013)

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Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

Attribution

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