Occupation: Mathematician Birth: March 3, 1916 Death: October 2, 2006
The joy of suddenly learning a former secret and the joy of suddenly discovering a hitherto unknown truth are the same to me - both have the flash of….
When a student comes and asks, "Should I become a mathematician?" the answer should be no. If you have to ask, you shouldn't even ask..
A good stack of examples, as large as possible, is indispensable for a thorough understanding of any concept,and when I want to learn something new, ….
The heart of mathematics is its problems..
...the source of all great mathematics is the special case, the concrete example. It is frequent in mathematics that every instance of a concept of s….
It saddens me that educated people don't even know that my subject exists..
The heart of mathematics consists of concrete examples and concrete problems. Big general theories are usually afterthoughts based on small but profo….
A smooth lecture... may be pleasant; a good teacher challenges, asks, irritates and maintains high standards - all that is generally not pleasant..
The beginner should not be discouraged if he finds he does not have the prerequisites for reading the prerequisites..
[Mathematics] is security. Certainty. Truth. Beauty. Insight. Structure. Architecture. I see mathematics, the part of human knowledge that I call mat….
Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché. When you try to prove a theorem, you don't just list the hypotheses, and then start to reas….
The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics. That tenet is the foundation of the do-it-yourself, Socratic, or Texas method..
It is the duty of all teachers, and of teachers of mathematics in particular, to expose their students to problems much more than to facts..
The library is the mathematician's laboratory..
Many teachers are concerned about the amount of material they must cover in a course. One cynic suggested a formula: since, he said, students on the ….
To be a scholar of mathematics you must be born with talent, insight, concentration, taste, luck, drive and the ability to visualize and guess..
Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché... What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork..
The mathematical fraternity is a little like a self-perpetuating priesthood. The mathematicians of today teach the mathematicians of tomorrow and, in….
The computer is important, but not to mathematics..
The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics..
Feller was an ebullient man, who would rather be wrong than undecided..