Bombs Are Probably More Merciful Than Bayonets

Mathematics Is Not A Contemplative But A Creative Subject; No One Can Draw Much Consolation From It When He Has Lost The Power Or The Desire To Create; And That Is Apt To Happen To A Mathematician Rather Soon. It Is A Pity, But In That Case He Does Not Matter A Great Deal Anyhow, And It Would Be Silly To Bother About Him.

A Science Is Said To Be Useful If Its Development Tends To Accentuate The Existing Inequalities In The Distribution Of Wealth, Or More Directly Promotes The Destruction Of Human Life.

It Is A Melancholy Experience For A Professional Mathematician To Find Himself Writing About Mathematics. The Function Of A Mathematician Is To Do Something, To Prove New Theorems, To Add To Mathematics, And Not To Talk About What He Or Other Mathematicians Have Done. Statesmen Despise Publicists, Painters Despise Art-critics, And Physiologists, Physicists, Or Mathematicians Have Usually Similar Feelings: There Is No Scorn More Profound, Or On The Whole More Justifiable, Than That Of The Men Who Make For The Men Who Explain. Exposition, Criticism, Appreciation, Is Work For Second-rate Minds.

Exposition, Criticism, Appreciation, Is Work For Second-rate Minds.

I Count Maxwell And Einstein, Eddington And Dirac, Among "real" Mathematicians. The Great Modern Achievements Of Applied Mathematics Have Been In Relativity And Quantum Mechanics, And These Subjects Are At Present At Any Rate, Almost As "useless" As The Theory Of Numbers.