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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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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
Philosophy
Hopelessly
Hand
Elementary
Knowledge
Counts
Hands
Obscure
Hardly
Proper
Subject
Subjects
Astonishingly

More quotes by G. H. Hardy

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The case for my life... is this: that I have added something to knowledge, and helped others to add more
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Sometimes one has to say difficult things, but one ought to say them as simply as one knows how.
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Asked if he believes in one G-d, a mathematician answered: Yes, up to isomorphism.
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Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. Immortality may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.
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A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.
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Cricket is the only game where you are playing against eleven of the other side and ten of your own.
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Young men should prove theorems, old men should write books.
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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.
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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.
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317 is a prime, not because we think so, or because our minds are shaped in one way rather than another, but because it is so, because mathematical reality is built that way.
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The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics.
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A science or an art may be said to be useful if its development increases, even indirectly, the material well-being and comfort of men, it promotes happiness, using that word in a crude and commonplace way.
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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.
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Good work is not done by 'humble' men
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In [great mathematics] there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.
G. H. Hardy
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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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A man who sets out to justify his existence and his activities has to distinguish two different questions. The first is whether the work which he does is worth doing and the second is why he does it (whatever its value may be).
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A mathematician ... has no material to work with but ideas, and so his patterns are likely to last longer, since ideas wear less with time than words.
G. H. Hardy
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A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.
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Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
G. H. Hardy