“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.”
A Mathematician's Apology (1941)
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G. H. Hardy 20
British mathematician 1877–1947Related quotes

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Patheos, Orwellian Legislative Duplicity on HB 1485 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2017/05/05/orwellian-legislative-duplicity-hb-1485/ (May 5, 2017)

"The Fundamentals of Theoretical Physics," (1940) as quoted in Out of My Later Years (1976)
1940s

Aphorism 97
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: No one has yet been found so firm of mind and purpose as resolutely to compel himself to sweep away all theories and common notions, and to apply the understanding, thus made fair and even, to a fresh examination of particulars. Thus it happens that human knowledge, as we have it, is a mere medley and ill-digested mass, made up of much credulity and much accident, and also of the childish notions which we at first imbibed.

“It serves the purpose of not serving a purpose, surely quite a valid one.”
In an interview in Artforum, Nov. 83
Interviews