2 Quotes by Stanislaw M. Ulam

There must be a trick to the train of thought, a recursive formula. A group of neurons starts working automatically, sometimes without external impulse. It is a kind of iterative process with a growing pattern. It wanders about in the brain, and the way it happens must depend on the memory of similar patterns.

I remember what seemed to me a bright remark he made after a month’s stay in England about the difference between Polish and English “intellectual” conversations. He said that in Poland people talked foolishly about important things, and in England intelligently about foolish or trivial things.