G. H. Hardy Mathematics Quotations

I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.

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.

The "seriousness" of a mathematical theorem lies, not in its practical consequences, which are usually negligible, but in the significance of the mathematical ideas which it connects.

In [great mathematics] there is a very high degree of unexpectedness, combined with inevitability and economy.

As history proves abundantly, mathematical achievement, whatever its intrinsic worth, is the most enduring of all.

The public does not need to be convinced that there is something in mathematics.

Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject.

[P]ure 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.