Michael Atiyah quotes

I always want to try to understand why things work. I'm not interested in getting a formula without knowing what it means. I always try to dig behind the scenes, so if I have a formula, I understand why it's there. And understanding is a very difficult notion. (Michael Atiyah)
Algebra is the offer made by the devil to the mathematician. The devil says: `I will give you this powerful machine, it will answer any question you like. All you need to do is give me your soul: give up geometry and you will have this marvellous machine. View quote
Michael Atiyah
This 'Hodge conjecture' has by now achieved a considerable status, almost on a par with the Riemann hypothesis or the Poincaré conjecture. View quote
Michael Atiyah
My own supervisor, William Hodge, the creator of the fertile theory of harmonic forms, was not a genius like Ramanujan but resembled Lefschetz. View quote
Michael Atiyah