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It’s time to let the secret out: mathematics is not primarily a matter of plugging numbers into formulas and performing rote computations. It is a way of thinking and questioning that may be unfamiliar to many of us, but is available to almost all of us.

— John Allen Paulos A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

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More quotes by John Allen Paulos

Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

There’s always enough random success to justify almost anything to someone who wants to believe.

Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988)

In general, any differences between two groups will always be greatly accentuated at the extremes.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Even the most superficial of a newspaper reveals an important aspect of human psychology: our preoccupation with the short term.

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995)

Appreciating humor—even recognizing it—requires human skills of the highest order (level?); no computer comes close to having them.

Mathematics and Humor: A Study of the Logic of Humor (1980)

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