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The study of mathematics is, if an unprofitable, a perfectly harmless and innocent occupation.

G. H. Hardy

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G. H. Hardy
Age: 70 †
Born: 1877
Born: February 7
Died: 1947
Died: December 1
Academic
Mathematician
University Teacher
Cranleigh
Surrey
G. H. Hardy
Godfrey Harold Hardy
Godfrey·Harold·Hardy
Godfrey Harold
Unprofitable
Harmless
Occupation
Perfectly
Innocent
Mathematics
Study
Science

More quotes by G. H. Hardy

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What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men.
G. H. Hardy
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For my part, it is difficult for me to say what I owe to Ramanujan - his originality has been a constant source of suggestion to me ever since I knew him, and his death is one of the worst blows I have ever had.
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I believe that mathematical reality lies outside us, that our function is to discover or observe it, and that the theorems which we prove, and which we describe grandiloquently as our creations, are simply the notes of our observations.
G. H. Hardy
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Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.
G. H. Hardy
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The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics.
G. H. Hardy
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No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years.
G. H. Hardy
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A chess problem is simply an exercise in pure mathematics.
G. H. Hardy
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In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras, and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and the youngest of all.
G. H. Hardy
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It is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average length of life.
G. H. Hardy
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I was at my best at a little past forty, when I was a professor at Oxford.
G. H. Hardy
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Pure mathematics is on the whole distinctly more useful than applied... For what is useful above all is technique, and mathematical technique is taught mainly through pure mathematics.
G. H. Hardy
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It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
G. H. Hardy
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Chess problems are the hymn-tunes of mathematics.
G. H. Hardy
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A month's intelligent instruction in the theory of numbes ought to be twice as instructive, twice as useful, and at least 10 times as entertaining as the same amount of 'calculus for engineers'.
G. H. Hardy
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... Philosophy proper is a subject, on the one hand so hopelessly obscure, on the other so astonishingly elementary, that there knowledge hardly counts.
G. H. Hardy
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Sometimes one has to say difficult things, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how.
G. H. Hardy
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There is always more in one of Ramanujan's formulae than meets the eye, as anyone who sets to work to verify those which look the easiest will soon discover. In some the interest lies very deep, in others comparatively near the surface but there is not one which is not curious and entertaining.
G. H. Hardy
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The fact is there are few more popular subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune.
G. H. Hardy
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I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty
G. H. Hardy
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Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
G. H. Hardy