John Edensor Littlewood Quotes
Before creation, God did just pure mathematics. Then He thought it would be a pleasant change to do some applied.
Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else.
The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry.
The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would.
A precisian professor had the habit of saying: "... quartic polynomial ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e , where e need not be the base of the natural logarithms."
I've been giving this lecture to first-year classes for over twenty-five years. You'd think they would begin to understand it by now.
A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that "E is dense in E" does not mean the same thing as "E is dense in itself".
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers.
Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad.
I recall once saying that when I had given the same lecture several times I couldn't help feeling that they really ought to know it by now.
A heavy warning used to be given that pictures are not rigorous; this has never had its bluff called and has permanently frightened its victims into playing for safety.
The referee said it was not acceptable, but the Press considered they could not refuse to publish a book by a professor of the university.
The first lecture of each new year renews for most people a light stage fright.
