John Littlewood Quotes

#1. I've been giving this lecture to first-year classes for over twenty-five years. You'd think they would begin to understand it by now.

John Edensor Littlewood

#2. The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry.

John Edensor Littlewood

#3. It's not enough to know what all the words mean," he continued. "A good reader starts to see what an entire book is trying to say. And then a good reader will have something to say in return.

Paul Acampora

#4. It is true that I should have been surprised in the past to learn that Professor Hardy had joined the Oxford Group. But one could not say the adverse chance was 1:10. Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad, and then this particular event would be quite likely.

John Edensor Littlewood

#5. Wherein is the use of getting rid of one thorn out of many?

Horace

#6. Already the pitch has been reached in Great Britain where it is considered bigoted or reactionary to do other than praise the Jews for their industry and ability. Few papers will risk any attack on the Jews, however well-founded, for fear of appearing even distantly anti-Semitic.

Sidney Robertson Cowell

#7. Well, that sucked more ass than liposuction.

Darynda Jones

#8. The referee said it was not acceptable, but the Press considered they could not refuse to publish a book by a professor of the university.

John Edensor Littlewood

#9. The infinitely competent can be uncreative.

John Edensor Littlewood

#10. A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.

John Edensor Littlewood

#11. I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers.

John Edensor Littlewood

#12. The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would.

John Edensor Littlewood

#13. A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.

Edith Sitwell

#14. I have some cool talents. I'm really flexible and can do all sorts of twisted yoga positions. And I'm a big athlete and especially love soccer.

Genevieve Padalecki

#15. Before creation, God did just pure mathematics. Then He thought it would be a pleasant change to do some applied.

John Edensor Littlewood

#16. Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad.

John Edensor Littlewood

#17. Don't feel sad. The only certain thing in life ... is death itself. She's free from her body and her soul is ready to take on another new life, so she can continue on until she becomes light, just like the stars.

Grace Fiorre

#18. Sometimes we get so busy pursuing our dream that we forget to notice the degree to which we're living it already.

Victoria Moran

#19. It is possible for a mathematician to be "too strong" for a given occasion. He forces through, where another might be driven to a different, and possible more fruitful, approach. (So a rock climber might force a dreadful crack, instead of finding a subtle and delicate route.)

John Edensor Littlewood

#20. A Miscellany is a collection without a natual ordering relation.

John Edensor Littlewood

#21. I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort.

Cornel West

#22. Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else.

John Edensor Littlewood

#23. 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

#24. The first lecture of each new year renews for most people a light stage fright.

John Edensor Littlewood

#25. Littlewood, on Hardy's own estimate, is the finest mathematician he has ever known. He was the man most likely to storm and smash a really deep and formidable problem; there was no one else who could command such a combination of insight, technique and power.

Henry Hallett Dale

#26. A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that "E is dense in E" does not mean the same thing as "E is dense in itself".

John Edensor Littlewood

#27. When I was coaching, the one thought that I would try to get across to my players was that everything I do each day, everything I say, I must first think what effect it will have on everyone concerned.

Frank Layden

#28. The higher mental activities are pretty tough and resilient, but it is a devastating experience if the drive does stop. Some people lose it in their forties and can only stop. In England they are a source of Vice-Chancellors.

John Edensor Littlewood

#29. 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 ... "

John Edensor Littlewood

#30. Without confidence we feel insecure. We replay the doubting voices of our parents on a loop in our own minds.

Steven Franssen

#31. In passing, I firmly believe that research should be offset by a certain amount of teaching, if only as a change from the agony of research. The trouble, however, I freely admit, is that in practice you get either no teaching, or else far too much.

John Edensor Littlewood

#32. A heavy warning used to be given that pictures are not rigorous; this has never had its bluff called and has permanently frightened its victims into playing for safety.

John Edensor Littlewood