“What does it take to be [a mathematician]?”

— Paul R. Halmos

Source: I Want to be a Mathematician: An Automathography (1985)
Context: What does it take to be [a mathematician]? I think I know the answer: you have to be born right, you must continually strive to become perfect, you must love mathematics more than anything else, you must work at it hard and without stop, and you must never give up.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Nov. 30, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "What does it take to be [a mathematician]?" by Paul R. Halmos?

Paul R. Halmos9

American mathematician 1916–2006

Related quotes

“A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

“You must be painter who takes a canvas and does what he likes with it.”

Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007) Italian film director and screenwriter

Encountering Directors interview (1969)
Context: You must be painter who takes a canvas and does what he likes with it. We are more like painters in past centuries who were ordered to paint frescoes to specific measurements. Among the people in the fresco may be a bishop, the prince's wife, etc. The fresco isn't bad simply because the painter used for models people from the court of the prince who ordered and paid for it.

“Whoever is versed in the jargon does not have to say what he thinks, does not even have to think it properly. The jargon takes over this task.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Der des Jargons Kundige braucht nicht zu sagen, was er denkt, nicht einmal recht es zu denken: das nimmt der Jargon ihm ab und entwertet den Gedanken.
Source: Jargon der Eigentlichkeit [Jargon of Authenticity] (1964), p. 9

“A living skeleton isn't enough for you, is it? What does it take to impress young people these days?”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“That it does not pay to gamble has been the oft repeated theme of the moralist, and has been demonstrated with much brave show of symbols by mathematicians from Lagrange to De Morgan and onwards.”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

"The Scientific Aspect of Monte Carlo Roulette" (1894)

“The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place. He gives you the typical, recurring, or what Aristotle calls universal event.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

"Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

“Mathematics is too arduous and uninviting a field to appeal to those to whom it does not give great rewards. These rewards are of exactly the same character as those of the artist. To see a difficult uncompromising material take living shape and meaning is to be Pygmalion, whether the material is stone or hard, stonelike logic. To see meaning and understanding come where there has been no meaning and no understanding is to share the work of a demiurge. No amount of technical correctness and no amount of labour can replace this creative moment, whether in the life of a mathematician or of a painter or musician. Bound up with it is a judgement of values, quite parallel to the judgement of values that belongs to the painter or the musician. Neither the artist nor the mathematician may be able to tell you what constitutes the difference between a significant piece of work and an inflated trifle; but if he is not able to recognise this in his own heart, he is no artist and no mathematician.”

Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) American mathematician

Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth (1964)

“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard core unemployed.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

President JOHN F. KENNEDY, statement on the need for training or rehabilitation of Selective Service rejectees" (30 September 1963) http://www.bartleby.com/73/1189.html; also: John F. Kennedy: "Statement by the President on the Need for Training or Rehabilitation of Selective Service Rejectees" (30 September 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9446&st=&st1= <br class="br">1963

“Such is the disposition of mankind, if they cannot blast an action, they will censure the parade of it; and whether you do what does not deserve to be taken notice of, or take notice yourself of what does, either way you incur reproach.”
Homines enim cum rem destruere non possunt, iactationem eius incessunt. Ita si silenda feceris, factum ipsum, si laudanda non sileas, ipse culparis.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 8, 15.
Letters, Book I

“What does it take to be [a mathematician]?”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Paul R. Halmos9

Related quotes

Related topics