Young Men Should Prove Theorems, Old Men

A Chess Problem Is Simply An Exercise In Pure Mathematics.

If A Man Is In Any Sense A Real Mathematician, Then It Is A Hundred To One That His Mathematics Will Be Far Better Than Anything Else He Can Do, And That He Would Be Silly If He Surrendered Any Decent Opportunity Of Exercising His One Talent In Order To Do Undistinguished Work In Other Fields. Such A Sacrifice Could Be Justified Only By Economic Necessity Of Age.

If Intellectual Curiosity, Professional Pride, And Ambition Are The Dominant Incentives To Research, Then Assuredly No One Has A Fairer Chance Of Gratifying Them Than A Mathematician.

I Have Never Done Anything 'useful'. No Discovery Of Mine Has Made, Or Is Likely To Make, Directly Or Indirectly, For Good Or Ill, The Least Difference To The Amenity Of The World... Judged By All Practical Standards, The Value Of My Mathematical Life Is Nil; And Outside Mathematics It Is Trivial Anyhow. I Have Just One Chance Of Escaping A Verdict Of Complete Triviality, That I May Be Judged To Have Created Something Worth Creating. And That I Have Created Something Is Undeniable: The Question Is About Its Value.

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.