I do not remember having felt, as a boy, any passion for mathematics, and such notions as I may have had of the career of a mathematician were far from noble. I thought of mathematics in terms of examinations and scholarships: I wanted to beat other boys, and this seemed to be the way in which I could do so most decisively.

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

A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.

All analysts spend half their time hunting through the literature for inequalities which they want to use and cannot prove.

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

A person’s first duty, a young person’s at any rate, is to be ambitious, and the noblest ambition is that of leaving behind something of permanent value.

No one should ever be bored. … One can be horrified, or disgusted, but one can’t be bored.