I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

...there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. read more

...there is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. In my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don't work, so I have to give it up.

If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups, then the whole world's going to be nothing more than one read more

If you get hung up on everybody else's hang-ups, then the whole world's going to be nothing more than one huge gallows.

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain read more

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says read more

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who read more

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something read more

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate read more

There are more ideas on earth than intellectuals imagine. And these ideas are more active, stronger, more resistant, more passionate than "politicians" think. We have to be there at the birth of ideas, the bursting outward of their force: not in books expressing them, but in events manifesting this force, in struggles carried on around ideas, for or against them. Ideas do not rule the world. But it is because the world has ideas... that it is not passively ruled by those who are its leaders or those who would like to teach it, once and for all, what it must think.