41 Quotes by Terence Tao

My life is more than just my work. I am a husband and a father and a proud citizen of two countries: my homeland of Australia and my adopted country here in the United States.

I always liked numbers.

Most students who take math classes aren't going to be mathematicians. They're going to be engineers, statisticians - in many ways, that's the more important mission of math education.

One can think of any given axiom system as being like a computer with a certain limited amount of memory or processing power. One could switch to a computer with even more storage, but no matter how large an amount of storage space the computer has, there will still exist some tasks that are beyond its ability.

When you're concentrating hard, hours can fly by, and it's just you and a math problem.

Most of what I do does not save lives.

I always liked situations where there were very clear rules of what to do.

If I experiment enough, I get a deeper understanding.

If there is something that I should know how to do but don't, it bugs me. I feel like I have to sit down and work out exactly what the problem is.