"In almost all textbooks, even the best, this principle is presented so that it is impossible to understand." (K. Jacobi, Lectures on Dynamics, 1842-… - Vladimir Arnold

In the last 30 years, the prestige of mathematics has declined in all countries. I think that mathematicians are partially to be blamed as well—foremost, Hilbert and Bourbaki—the ones who proclaimed that the goal of their science was investigation of all corollaries of arbitrary systems of axioms.

It is almost impossible for me to read contemporary mathematicians who, instead of saying “Petya washed his hands,” write simply: “There is a <math>t_1<0</math> such that the image of <math>t_1</math> under the natural mapping <math>t_1 \mapsto {\rm Petya}(t_1)</math> belongs to the set of dirty hands, and a <math>t_2</math>, <math>t_1<t_2 \leq 0</math>, such that the image of <math>t_2</math> under the above-mentioned mapping belongs to the complement of the set defined in the preceding sentence.”

Such axioms, together with other unmotivated definitions, serve mathematicians mainly by making it difficult for the uninitiated to master their subject, thereby elevating its authority.