“[T]he formalist school, of whom the most eminent representative is Hilbert, have concentrated on the propositions of mathematics, such as '2 + 2 = 4'. They have pronounced these to be meaningless formulae to be manipulated according to arbitrary rules, and they hold that mathematical knowledge consists in knowing what formulae can be derived from what others consistently with the rules…. for example…'2' is a meaningless mark occurring in these meaningless formulae. But… '2' occurs not only in '2 + 2 = 4', but also in 'It is 2 miles to the station', which is not a meaningless formulae, but a significant proposition, in which '2' cannot conceivably be a meaningless mark.”

— Frank P. Ramsey

The Foundations of Mathematics (1925)

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Frank P. Ramsey 10

British mathematician, philosopher 1903–1930

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Gerald James Whitrow (1912–2000) British mathematician

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The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology (1949)

“All the light which is radiated… will, after it has traveled a distance r, lie on the surface of a sphere whose area S is given by the first of the formulae (3). And since the practical procedure… in determining d is equivalent to assuming that all this light lies on the surface of a Euclidean sphere of radius d, it follows…4 \pi d^2 = S = 4 \pi r^2 (1 - \frac{K r^2}{3} + …);whence, to our approximation 4)d = r (1- \frac{K r^2}{6} + …), or
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Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

“Fermat died with the belief that he had found a long-sought-for law of prime numbers in the formula 2^{2^n} + 1 = a prime, but he admitted that he was unable to prove it rigorously. The law is not true, as was pointed out by Euler in the example 2^{2^5} + 1 = 4,294,967,297 = 6,700,417 times 641. The American lightning calculator Zerah Colburn, when a boy, readily found the factors but was unable to explain the method by which he made his marvellous mental computation.”

Florian Cajori book A History of Mathematics

Source: A History of Mathematics (1893), p. 180; also cited in Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath's Quotation-book (1914) pp. 156-157. https://books.google.com/books?id=G0wtAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA156