I Am Interested In Mathematics Only As

For My Part, It Is Difficult For Me To Say What I Owe To Ramanujan - His Originality Has Been A Constant Source Of Suggestion To Me Ever Since I Knew Him, And His Death Is One Of The Worst Blows I Have Ever Had.

A Chess Problem Is Genuine Mathematics, But It Is In Some Way "trivial" Mathematics. However, Ingenious And Intricate, However Original And Surprising The Moves, There Is Something Essential Lacking. Chess Problems Are Unimportant. The Best Mathematics Is Serious As Well As Beautiful-"important" If You Like, But The Word Is Very Ambiguous, And "serious" Expresses What I Mean Much Better.

All Analysts Spend Half Their Time Hunting Through The Literature For Inequalities Which They Want To Use And Cannot Prove.

[i Was Advised] To Read Jordan's 'cours D'analyse'; And I Shall Never Forget The Astonishment With Which I Read That Remarkable Work, The First Inspiration For So Many Mathematicians Of My Generation, And Learnt For The First Time As I Read It What Mathematics Really Meant.

A Person’s First Duty, A Young Person’s At Any Rate, Is To Be Ambitious, And The Noblest Ambition Is That Of Leaving Behind Something Of Permanent Value.