Best G. H. Hardy Sayings
- The Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations have perished; Hammurabi, Sargon and Nebuchadnezzar are empty names; yet Babylonian mathematics is still interesting, and the Babylonian scale of… Assyrian
- The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics. Convinced
- The "seriousness" of a mathematical theorem lies, not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which… Connects
- When the world is mad, a mathematician may find in mathematics an incomparable anodyne. For mathematics is, of all the arts and sciences, the most… Actual
- All analysts spend half their time hunting through the literature for inequalities which they want to use and cannot prove. All
- The fact is there are few more popular subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a… Appreciation
- The creative life [is] the only one for a serious man. Creative
- I was at my best at a little past forty, when I was a professor at Oxford. Best
- A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish two different questions. The first is whether the work which… Activities
- A science or an art may be said to be "useful" if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort of men, it… Art
- The primes are the raw material out of which we have to build arithmetic, and Euclid's theorem assures us that we have plenty of material… Arithmetic
- I wrote a great deal during the next ten [early] years,but very little of any importance; there are not more than four or five papers… Any
- No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will… Any
- There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the… Anyone
- It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. Already Enough
- A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are… Education
- Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. Apology
- It is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million… Altogether
- No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died… Abel
- Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books. Book
- Good work is no done by "humble" men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any subject, to exaggerate… Always Asking
- A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they… Ideas
- I wrote a great deal... but very little of any importance; there are not more than four of five papers which I can still remember… Any
- 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,… Appreciation
- Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. Aeschylus