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"He calculated the number of bricks in the wall, first in twos and then in tens and finally in sixteens. The numbers formed up and marched past his brain in terrified obedience. Division and multiplication were discovered. Algebra was invented and provided an interesting diversion for a minute or two. And then he felt the fog of numbers drift away, and looked up and saw the sparkling, distant mountains of calculus."
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"I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way."
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Personal Development
"The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence."
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"I was on the mathematics faculty at M.I.T. from 1951 through until I resigned in the spring of 1959."
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Personal Development
"In mathematics we have long since drawn the rein, and given over a hopeless race."
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Personal Development
"The flowering of geometry."
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Personal Development
"The square root of I is I."
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Personal Development
"The definition of a good mathematical problem is the mathematics it generates rather than the problem itself."
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"Mathematics doesn't care about those beyond the numbers."
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"I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about."
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"My mathematics is simple: one plus one = one."
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"But you can't just leave it at that!" said Anathema, pushing forward. "Think of all things you could do! Good things."Like what?" said Adam suspiciously."Well... you could bring all the whales back, to start with."He put his head on one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them?"She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes."An' if people do start killing 'em, what would you ask me to do about 'em?" said Adam. "No. I reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Once I start messing around like that, there'd be no stoppin' it. Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale."
Ethics
"Anyway, it's like with bikes,' said the first speaker authoritatively. 'I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl's bike.''Well. You're a girl,' said one of the others.'That's sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they're a girl."
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"Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual."
Humor
"One cannot help feeling that some alternative occupation-lettuce farming, say-would offer somewhat less of a risk of being put to death by installments. Why do you persist in it?Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged."I'm good at it, he said."
Purpose
"Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself."
Writing
"I believe the term is 'eminent domain.'Ah, yes. That means 'theft by the government."
Politics
"It's all about balance, do you see? Balance is the trick. Keep the balance and - " she stopped. "You've ridden on a seesaw? One end goes up, one end goes down. But the bit in the middle, that stays where it is. Upness and downness go right through it. Don't matter how high or low the ends go, it keeps the balance." She sniffed. "Magic is mostly movin' stuff around."
Life
"Sometimes thinking is like talking to another person, but that person is also you."
Wisdom
"Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent," said Miss Susan. "But answers do."
Wisdom
"Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they'd seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, "Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!"
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