John Edensor Littlewood Quotes
1885-06-09 – 1977-09-06
More John Edensor Littlewood Quotes
Theyare not clever school boys or scholarship candidates, but 'Fellows of another college'.
John Edensor Littlewood— 1953 Of the ancient Greeks. A Mathematician's Miscellany.
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
John Edensor Littlewood— "Introduction to A Mathematician's Miscellany", p. 24.
'The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it--would.'
John Edensor Littlewood— Note quotation marks: Littlewood is repeating a joke without attribution. "Cross-purposes, Unconscious Assumptions, Howlers, Misprints, etc.", p. 59.
I read in the proof-sheets of Hardy on Ramanujan: 'As someone said, each of the positive integers was one of his personal friends.' My reaction was, 'I wonder who said that; I wish I had.' In the next proof-sheets I read (what now stands): 'It was Littlewood who said...' (What had happened was that Hardy had received the remark in silence and with a poker face, and I wrote it off as a dud....)
John Edensor Littlewood— "Cross-purposes, Unconscious Assumptions, Howlers, Misprints, etc.", p. 61.
I recall once saying that when I had given the same lecture several times I couldn't help feeling that they really ought to know it by now.
John Edensor Littlewood— "Academic Life", p. 135.
