No mathematician should ever allow him to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game. ... Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty. There have been men who have done great work later; ... [but] I do not know of a single instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty. ... A mathematician may still be competent enough at sixty, but it is useless to expect him to have original ideas.

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.

Good work is not done by 'humble' men

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

Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.

I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.

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