705 Quotes About Mathematics

[Math] curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with something to test the students on.

College is the grinding machine of the Mathematical Establishment, a conveyor belt that takes individuals from one cookie cutter to another so that the product comes within tight control limits out of the assembly line.

... those who seek the lost Lord will find traces of His being and beauty in all that men have made, from music and poetry and sculpture to the gingerbread men in the pâtisseries, from the final calculation of the pure mathematician to the first delighted chalk drawing of a small child.

As for everything else, so for a mathematical theory: beauty can be perceived but not explained.

It seems to me that the poet has only to perceive that which others do not perceive, to look deeper than others look. And the mathematician must do the same thing.

What comes, is called.

For scholars and laymen alike it is not philosophy but active experience in mathematics itself that can alone answer the question: What is mathematics?

The mathematicians are the priests of the modern world.

My sub doesn't pay for me,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “That just doesn't happen.”“But we ordered so much,” I say helplessly.“It made you happy,” he says simply. “Now I get to play with you. And that makes me happy.”“I don't think it's that simple an equation.”“Maybe not,” he concedes. “But then, if if sex were the same thing as math, a lot more people would be lining up to take calculus.