I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty

As Littlewood said to me once [of the ancient Greeks], they are not clever school boys or "scholarship candidates," but "Fellows of another college."

Cricket is the only game where you are playing against eleven of the other side and ten of your own.

I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty

No discovery of mine has made, or is likely to make, directly or indirectly, for good or ill, the least difference to the amenity of the world.

It is rather astonishing how little practical value scientific knowledge has for ordinary men, how dull and commonplace such of it as has value is, and how its value seems almost to vary inversely to its reputed utility.

Most people can do nothing at all well