Blackboard Quote by George Polya

As a mathematician, von Neumann was quick, brilliant, efficient, and enormously broad in scientific interests beyond mathematics itself. He knew his technical abilities; his…

— Stanislaw Ulam

“He was "a magician, a magician in the sense that he took what was given and simply forced the conclusions logically out of it,…

— Robert Leonard

He [John von Neumann] had the invaluable faculty of being able to take the most difficult problem and separate it into its components, whereupon…

— Stanislaw Ulam

Only professional mathematicians learn anything from proofs. Other people learn from explanations.

— Ralph P. Boas, Jr

... The approach of von Neumann and Connes to the use of non-commutative algebra in physics is naive, the situation is much more complicated.

— Israel Gelfand

I believe that proving is not a natural activity for mathematicians.

— Rene Thom

A modern mathematical proof is not very different from a modern machine, or a modern test setup: the simple fundamental principles are hidden and…

— Hermann Weyl

I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many…

— G. H. Hardy

Proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.

— Arthur Eddington

The most spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity,…

— Anonymous

Many of the proofs in mathematics are very long and intricate. Others, though not long, are very ingeniously constructed.

— Edward Charles Titchmarsh

“Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.”

— Anonymous