E. T. Bell

Time makes fools of us all. Our only comfort is that greater shall come after us. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#come #comfort #fools #greater #makes

"Obvious" is the most dangerous word in mathematics. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#mathematics #most #obvious #word

Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#argument #assumptions #euclid #examine #me

Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#absolute truth #eternal #makes #pretension #science

The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#been #difficulties #future #mathematics #mistakes

Fashion as King is sometimes a very stupid ruler. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#king #ruler #sometimes #stupid #very

I have always hated machinery, and the only machine I ever understood was a wheelbarrow, and that but imperfectly. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#ever #hated #i #imperfectly #machine

If indeed, as Hilbert asserted, mathematics is a meaningless game played with meaningless marks on paper, the only mathematical experience to which we can refer is the making of marks on paper. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#experience #game #indeed #making #marks

It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#immortality #itself #marks #mathematics #off

Out of fifty mathematical papers presented in brief at such a meeting, it is a rare mathematician indeed who really understands what more than half a dozen are about. ↗

— E. T. Bell

#brief #dozen #fifty #half #indeed