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.

The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful.

[I was advised] to read Jordan's 'Cours d'analyse'; and I shall never forget the astonishment with which I read that remarkable work, the first inspiration for so many mathematicians of my generation, and learnt for the first time as I read it what mathematics really meant.

No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game

The creative life was the only one for a serious man.

Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand... So Greek mathematics is 'permanent', more permanent even than Greek literature.

It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.