“The 'language theory' is inadequate as a description of the nature of mathematics.”
100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
George Frederick James Temple 21
British mathematician 1901–1992Related quotes
Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa.
C. West Churchman, Leonard Auerbach, Simcha Sadan, Thinking for Decisions: Deductive Quantitative Methods (1975) Preface.
1960s - 1970s
100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)

“Mathematics is not just a language. Mathematics is a language plus reasoning.”
Source: The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 2, “The Relation of Mathematics to Physics”
Context: Mathematics is not just a language. Mathematics is a language plus reasoning. It's like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning. It's, in fact, a big collection of the results of some person's careful thought and reasoning. By mathematics, it is possible to connect one statement to another.

Source: "A synopsis of linguistic theory 1930-1955." 1957, p. 21; as cited in: Olivares, Beatriz Enriqueta Quiroz. The interpersonal and experiential grammar of Chilean Spanish: Towards a principled Systemic-Functional description based on axial argumentation. Diss. University of Sydney, 2013.
Mihajlo D. Mesarovic and Y. Takahare (1975) General Systems Theory, Mathematical foundations. Academic Press. Cited in: Franz Pichler, Roberto Moreno Diaz (1993. Computer Aided Systems Theory. p. 134
Jay Lemke (2003), "Teaching all the languages of science: Words , symbols, images and actions," p. 3; as cited in: Scott, Phil, Hilary Asoko, and John Leach. "Student conceptions and conceptual learning in science." Handbook of research on science education (2007): 31-56.