ThursdaySep 24, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
One is hard pressed to think of universal customs that man has successfully established on earth. There is one, however, of which he can boast the universal adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numerals to record numbers. In this we perhaps have man's unique worldwide victory of an idea.
Mathematics may be likened to a large rock whose interior composition we wish to examine. The older mathematicians appear as persevering stone cutters slowly attempting to demolish the rock from the outside with hammer and chisel. The later mathematicians resemble expert miners who seek vulnerable veins, drill into these strategic places, and then blast the rock apart with well placed internal charges.
An expert problem solver must be endowed with two incompatible qualities, a restless imagination and a patient pertinacity.
A formal manipulator in mathematics often experiences the discomforting feeling that his pencil surpasses him in intelligence.
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