The higher mental activities are pretty tough and resilient, but it is a devastating experience if the drive does stop. Some people lose it in their forties and can only stop. In England they are a source of Vice-Chancellors.
I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers. - John Edensor Littlewood
I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers.
- John Edensor Littlewood
The infinitely competent can be uncreative. - John Edensor Littlewood
The infinitely competent can be uncreative.
I constantly meet people who are doubtful, generally without due reason, about their potential capacity [as mathematicians]. The first test is whethe… - John Edensor Littlewood
I constantly meet people who are doubtful, generally without due reason, about their potential capacity [as mathematicians]. The first test is whethe…
I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends." My reaction was, … - John Edensor Littlewood
I read in the proof sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: "As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends." My reaction was, …
The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry. - John Edensor Littlewood
The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry.
In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trou… - John Edensor Littlewood
In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trou…
Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else. - John Edensor Littlewood
Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else.
It is true that I should have been surprised in the past to learn that Professor Hardy had joined the Oxford Group. But one could not say the adverse… - John Edensor Littlewood
It is true that I should have been surprised in the past to learn that Professor Hardy had joined the Oxford Group. But one could not say the adverse…
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers. - John Edensor Littlewood
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
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