Poets and Mathematicians

"[…] it is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul […] imagination and invention are identical […] the poet has only to perceive that which others do not perceive, to look deeper than others look. And the mathematician must do the same thing." (Sophia Kovalevskaya)

“A mathematician who is not also something of a poet will never be a complete mathematician.” (Karl Weierstrass)

"A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. [...]. The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics." (Godfrey Harold Hardy, “A Mathematician's Apology”, 1941)

"The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal." (William James)

“The difference between the poet and the mathematician is that the poet tries to get his head into the heavens while the mathematician tries to get the heavens into his head.” (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

"Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad […] mathematicians go mad.” (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

"The imagination in a mathematician who creates makes no less difference than in a poet who invents […]." (Jean Le Rond D'Alembert, Discours Preliminaire de L'Encyclopedie, 1967)

"[…] mathematicians and poets are people who believe in the power of words, of concepts and giving names to concepts" (Cédric Villani)