Gowers Quotes & Sayings

Light is my inspiration, my paint and brush. It is as vital as the model herself. Profoundly significant, it caresses the essential superlative curves and lines. Light I acknowledge as the energy upon which all life on this planet depends. — Ruth Bernhard

The nice thing about piracy is, it allows the public to get independent art, to get a variety of music and movies. — Lloyd Kaufman

It is obvious that mathematics needs both sorts of mathematicians, theory-builders and problem-solvers. — Timothy Gowers

A typical mathematician does not actively try to be useful. Individual mathematicians are motivated primarily by a subtle mixture of ambition and intellectual curiosity, and not by a wish to benefit society, nevertheless, mathematics as a whole does benefit society. — Timothy Gowers

Royalties are not how most writers or musicians make their living. Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales. — John Perry Barlow

Adapt the atmosphere of your reply to suit that of the letter you have received. If its tone is troubled, be sympathetic. If it is rude, be especially courteous. If it is muddle-headed, be especially lucid. If it is stubborn, be patient. If your correspondent is helpful, be appreciative. If you find yourself convicted of a mistake, acknowledge it freely and even with gratitude. — Rebecca Gowers

Here is something Category-Theorists like: it is trivial, but not trivially trivial. — Timothy Gowers

The atlas is a manifold. This is a typical mathematician's use of the word "is", and should not be confused with the normal use. — Timothy Gowers

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison — Greg Crabtree

Although the prime numbers are rigidly determined, they somehow feel like experimental data. — Timothy Gowers

When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress. — Mercedes McCambridge

If you want people to listen, you have to have a platform to speak from, and that is excellence in what you do. — William Pollard

Moreover, if one selects a problem, works on it in isolation for a few years and finally solves it, there is a danger, unless the problem is very famous, that it will no longer be regarded as all that significant. — Timothy Gowers

What a mathematical proof actually does is show that certain conclusions, such as the irrationality of , follow from certain premises, such as the principle of mathematical induction. The validity of these premises is an entirely independent matter which can safely be left to philosophers. — Timothy Gowers

My stories are very compact. I want them to say the most complex things in the simplest way. — Etgar Keret

Be clear, be brief, be human. — Ernest Gowers

When you constantly hear people talking about going the distance, going the distance, you can't help but wonder about it. I learned a lesson: next time I will fight my fight without that doubt. — Larry Holmes

That it is a solecism to begin a sentence with 'and' is a faintly lingering superstition. The OED gives examples ranging from the 10th to the 19th c.; the Bible is full of them. — Ernest Gowers

At the other end of the spectrum is, for example, graph theory, where the basic object, a graph, can be immediately comprehended. One will not get anywhere in graph theory by sitting in an armchair and trying to understand graphs better. Neither is it particularly necessary to read much of the literature before tackling a problem: it is of course helpful to be aware of some of the most important techniques, but the interesting problems tend to be open precisely because the established techniques cannot easily be applied. — Timothy Gowers

This attitude [the abstract method in mathematics] can be encapsulated in the following slogan: a mathematical object is what it does. — Timothy Gowers

I was in favour of the death penalty, and disposed to regard abolitionists as people whose hearts were bigger than their heads. Four years of close study of the subject gradually dispelled that feeling. In the end I became convinced that the abolitionists were right in their conclusions ... and that far from the sentimental approach leading into their camp and the rational one into that of the supporters, it was the other way about. — Ernest Gowers

Yes, I'm a great believer in angels. — Anna Lee

Can we have genuine knowledge of space without ever leaving our armchairs? — Timothy Gowers

As for all those mistakes I make - they are on purpose - to teach you how to deal with them. — Donald Norman