Mathematicians vs Theorems

“A mathematician, then, will be defined in what follows as someone who has published the proof of at least one non-trivial theorem.” (Jean Dieudonné)

“Everybody knows that mathematics is about Miracles, only mathematicians have a name for them: Theorems.” (Roger Howe, 1998)

“A mathematical theorem and its demonstration are prose. But if the mathematician is overwhelmed with the grandeur and wondrous harmony of geometrical forms, of the importance and universal application of mathematical maxims, or, of the mysterious simplicity of its manifold laws which are so self-evident and plain and at the same time so complicated and profound, he is touched by the poetry of his science; and if he but understands how to give expression to his feelings, the mathematician turns poet, drawing inspiration from the most abstract domain of scientific thought.” (Paul Carus, “Friedrich Schiller”, 1905)

“[…] the mathematician is always walking upon the brink of a precipice, for, no matter how many theorems he deduces, he cannot tell that some contradiction will not await him in the infinity of consequences.” (Richard A Arms, “The Notion of Number and the Notion of Class”, 1917)

"The mathematician is still regarded as the hermit who knows little of the ways of life outside his cell, who spends his time compounding incredible and incomprehensible theorems in a strange, clipped, unintelligible jargon." (Edward Kasner & James R Newman, "Mathematics and the Imagination", 1940)

“A mathematician experiments, amasses information, makes a conjecture, finds out that it does not work, gets confused and then tries to recover. A good mathematician eventually does so - and proves a theorem.” (Steven Krantz, “Conformal Mappings”, 1999)

“The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done." (Godfrey H Hardy, “A Mathematician’s Apology”, 1940)

“Good mathematicians see analogies between theorems or theories, the very best ones see analogies between analogies.” (Stefan Banach)

“No mathematician nowadays sets any store on the discovery of isolated theorems, except as affording hints of an unsuspected new sphere of thought, like meteorites detached from some undiscovered planetary orb of speculation.” (James J Sylvester)

“So if you could be the Devil and offer a mathematician to sell his soul for the proof of one theorem - what theorem would most mathematicians ask for?” (H Montgomery)