Far from being frivolous, recreational mathematics cuts to the heart of being a mathematician and is deeply linked to development of graduate-level m… - William Rowan Hamilton

In the pure mathematics, we contemplate absolute truths, which existed in the Divine Mind before the morning stars sang together, and which will continue to exist there, when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from heaven.

My earliest mathematical memory is my father explaining to me the theorem that three angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees. The idea that something could be proved to be always true was very appealing to me.

Susan: What is algebra exactly; is it those three-cornered things?
Phoebe: It is x minus y equals z plus y and things like that. And all the time you are saying they are equal, you feel in your heart, why should they be.