G. H. Hardy

The study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation.

— G. H. Hardy

Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject.

— G. H. Hardy

As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.

— G. H. Hardy

I remember once going to see him [Ramanujan] when he was lying ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi-cab No. 1729,…

— G. H. Hardy

Bombs are probably more merciful than bayonets

— G. H. Hardy

Mathematics may, like poetry or music, "promote and sustain a lofty habit of mind."

— G. H. Hardy

The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful.

— G. H. Hardy

I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good…

— G. H. Hardy

I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is to discover or observe it, and that the theorems which…

— G. H. Hardy

A chess problem is an exercise in pure mathematics.

— G. H. Hardy

I wrote a great deal during the next ten [early] years,but very little of any importance; there are not more than four…

— G. H. Hardy

A science or an art may be said to be "useful" if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort…

— G. H. Hardy

Sometimes one has to say difficult things, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how.

— G. H. Hardy

Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied. For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique…

— G. H. Hardy

Perhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do…

— G. H. Hardy

The primes are the raw material out of which we have to build arithmetic, and Euclid's theorem assures us that we have…

— G. H. Hardy

Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand... So Greek mathematics is 'permanent',…

— G. H. Hardy

Good work is not done by 'humble' men

— G. H. Hardy

For any serious purpose, intelligence is a very minor gift.

— G. H. Hardy

A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.

— G. H. Hardy

I was at my best at a little past forty, when I was a professor at Oxford.

— G. H. Hardy

A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish two different questions. The first is whether…

— G. H. Hardy

The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics.

— G. H. Hardy

Good work is no done by "humble" men. It is one of the first duties of a professor, for example, in any…

— G. H. Hardy

Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.

— G. H. Hardy