"Good work is no done by "humble" men.……" — 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 subject, to exaggerate a little both the importance of his subject and his own importance in it. A man who is always asking "Is what I do worth while?" and "Am I the right person to do it?" will always be ineffective himself and a discouragement to others. He must shut his eyes a little and think a little more of his subject and himself than they deserve. This is not too difficult: it is harder not to make his subject and himself ridiculous by shutting his eyes too tightly."
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G. H. Hardy
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76 Quotes by G. H. Hardy
G. H. Hardy has 76 quotes on this site.
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If intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition are the dominant incentives to research, then assuredly no one has a fairer…
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[Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This…
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A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way "trivial" mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original…
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A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of…
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No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least…
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Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. "Immortality" may be a…
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As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.
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Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.
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Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand... So Greek mathematics…
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I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.
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I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is to discover or observe it, and that the…
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I have never done anything 'useful'. No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly,…
See all 76 quotes by G. H. Hardy »
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