I count Maxwell and Einstein, Eddington and Dirac, among "real" mathematicians. The great modern achievements of applied mathematics have been in relativity and quantum mechanics, and these subjects are at present at any rate, almost as "useless" as the theory of numbers.
G. H. HardyBeauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.
G. H. HardyPerhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well, and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible. If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.
G. H. HardyThe primes are the raw material out of which we have to build arithmetic, and Euclid's theorem assures us that we have plenty of material for the task.
G. H. Hardy