Mathematics is a body of knowledge, but it contains no truths.

The writing in mathematics text is not only laconic to a fault; it is cold, monotonous, dry, dull, and even ungrammatical... The books are not only printed by machines; they are written by machines.

Statistics: the mathematical theory of ignorance.

Universities hire professors the way some men choose wives - they want the ones the others will admire.

A elegantly executed proof is a poem in all but the form in which it is written.

Actually, most mathematics courses do not teach reasoning of any kind. Students are so baffled by the material that they are obliged to memorize in order to pass examinations.

Mathematicians create by acts of insights and intuition. Logic then sanctions the conquests of intuition.

Psychologically, the teaching of abstractions first is wrong. Indeed, a thorough understanding of the concrete must precede the abstract.

There is no rigorous definition of rigor.

A proof tells us where to concentrate our doubts.

In brief, the whole world is the totality of mathematically expressible motions of objects in space and time, and the entire universe is a great, harmonious, and mathematically designed machine.

The only way to efficiently battle evil is to copy enough to know how to counter each argument, yet not enough to believe all the bullshit.

The clock in the church tower said 4.32, as it had done for three hundred years. It was right once a day and that was better than no clock at all.

People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

I've always considered myself a character actor. That's the way I was trained, really.

Women owe Friedan an incalculable debt for The Feminine Mystique. Domesticity was not a satisfactory story of an intelligent woman's life.

To a boiling pot flies come not.

In battle, do not think that you have to win. Think rather that you do not have to lose.

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

I think denial's fascinating. It's a jokey word, but it really happens, and sometimes in enormous ways.

One can easily classify all works of fiction either as descendants of the Iliad or of the Odyssey.