All mathematicians live in two different worlds. They live in a crystalline world of perfect platonic platforms. An ice palace. But they also live in the common world where things are transient, ambiguous, subject to vicissitudes. Mathematicians go backward and forward from one world to the other. They are adults in the crystalline world, infants in the real one.
- S. Capell, Courant Institute of Mathematics, 1996
There are two kinds of mathematical contributions: work that's important to the history of mathematics and work that's simply a triumph of the human spirit.
- Paul J. Cohen, 1996
The growing consciousness is a danger and a disease.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Mathematics is a young man's game. Yet it is not bearable to contemplate a brief distinction and burgeoning of activity.. followed by a lifetime of boredom.
- Norbert Wiener
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