Prelude to Mathematics Quotes

“The art of reasoning consists in getting hold of the subject at the right end, of seizing on the few general ideas that illuminate the whole, and of persistently organizing all subsidiary facts round them.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“It might be objected that men are not trees; that if a man realizes something ought to be done, he can go and do it. This is true within certain limits. There can be social conditions favourable to mathematical studies; if a country urgently needs mathematicians, and if everyone knows this, mathematics may well flourish. But this still does not answer the question of how · it comes to flourish. An external motive, good or bad, is not enough. Greed for money, desire for fame, love of humanity are equally incapable of making a man a composer of great music. It has been said that most young men would like to be able to sit down at the piano and improvise sonatas before admiring crowds. But few do it; to desire the end does not provide the means; to make music you must be interested in music, as well as (or instead of) in being admired. And to make mathematics you must be interested in mathematics. The fascination of pattern and the logical classification of pattern must have taken hold of you. It need not be the only emotion in your mind; you may pursue other aims, respond to other duties; but if it is not there, you will contribute nothing to mathematics.”
― W.W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“An activity engaged in purely for its consequences, without any pleasure in the activity itself, is likely to be poorly executed.”
― W.W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“To solve a problem means to reduce it to something simpler than itself.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“The main difficulty the student of groups meets is not that of following the argument, which is nearly always straightforward, but of grasping the purpose of the investigation.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“Nobody can be a good reasoner unless by constant practice he has realised the importance of getting hold of the big ideas and hanging on to them like grim death.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“To see the clear, logical ideas gradually being disentangled from vagueness and confusion is vastly more instructive than simply starting with the logical ideas.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics

“O Perfect One, why do you do this thing? For though we find joy in it, we know not the celestial reason nor the correspondency of it’. And Sabbah answered: ‘I will tell you first what I do; I will tell you the reasons afterward.”
― W. W. Sawyer, Prelude to Mathematics