![[W]e shall be concerned with the general nature of pure mathematics, and how it is distinguished from other sciences. Here there are... two distinct categories of things of which an account must be given-the ideas or concepts of mathematics, and the propositions of mathematics. ...the great majority of writers on the subject have concentrated their attention on the explanation of one or the other... and erroneously supposed that a satisfactory explanation of the other would immediately follow. (Frank P. Ramsey)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/53/frank-p-ramsey-account-959253.webp)
[W]e shall be concerned with the general nature of pure mathematics, and how it is distinguished from other sciences. Here there are... two distinct categories of things of which an account must be given-the ideas or concepts of mathematics, and the propositions of mathematics. ...the great majority of writers on the subject have concentrated their attention on the explanation of one or the other... and erroneously supposed that a satisfactory explanation of the other would immediately follow.
Frank P. RamseyRelated topics
account attention explanation follow general great majority mathematics nature pure satisfactory subject things sciencesRelated quotes
In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea - by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not. I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
I am obliged to interpolate some remarks on a very difficult subject: proof and its importance in mathematics. All physicists, and a good many quite respectable mathematicians, are contemptuous about proof. I have heard Professor Eddington, for example, maintain that proof, as pure mathematicians understand it, is really quite uninteresting and unimportant, and that no one who is really certain that he has found something good should waste his time looking for proof.
G. H. Hardy
In asking forgiveness of women for our mythologizing of their bodies, for being unreal about them, we can only appeal to their own sexuality, which is different but not basically different, perhaps, from our own. For women, too, there seems to be that tangle of supplication and possessiveness, that descent toward infantile undifferentiation, that omnipotent helplessness, that merger with the cosmic mother-warmth, that flushed pulse-quickened leap into overestimation, projection, general mix-up.
John Updike
Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.
Samuel Johnson
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.
Edmund Burke
