“The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possib...” — E. T. Bell Quote

“The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes.”

“It is the perennial youthfulness of mathematics itself which marks it off with a disconcerting immortality from the other sciences.”

“Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.”

“Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions.”

“I have always hated machinery, and the only machine I ever understood was a wheelbarrow, and that but imperfectly.”

“The mistakes and unresolved difficulties of the past in mathematics have always been the opportunities of its future.”

“I finished up my graduate degree in quantum mechanics, but underwent a bit of a personal crisis, recognizing that I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. It was too abstract, too far removed from human concerns.”

“Just because I try to read a lot of stuff doesn't mean I can fully conceptualize all of these intense, big, abstract ideas.”

“America used to be proud of abstraction, and we have fallen away from it. The future depends on people trying to promote that abstract thinking. Not just in relation to music and jazz and the arts, but the economy, social strife, tension between people.”

“When you make a painting, even abstract, there is always a sort of necessary filling-in.”

“In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.”

“In 1971, I put together the 'Johnny Face' drawing as a concept, with the words as part of an image in a circle. Combining my abstract drawing with the headline 'Crazy World Ain't It' created an emblem and became a button.”