"Anything worth discovering in mathematics does not need proof; it needs only to be seen or understood." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Each symbol used in mathematics, whether it be a diagram, a numeral, a letter, a sign, or a conventional hieroglyph, may be understood as a vehicle which someone has used on a journey of discovery." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Mathematics and poetry move together between two extremes of mysticism, the mysticism of the commonplace where ideas illuminate and create facts, and the mysticism of the extraordinary where God, the Infinite, the Real, poses the riddles of desire and disappointment, sin and salvation, effort and failure, question and paradoxical answer."
"Mathematics is not a compendium or memorizable formula and magically manipulated figures." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Mathematics then becomes the ladder by which we all may climb into the heaven of perfect insight and eternal satisfaction, and the solution of arithmetic and algebraic problems is connected with the salvation of our souls." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Numbers are not just counters; they are elements in a system." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Science is an allegory that asserts that the relations between the parts of reality are similar to the relations between terms of discourse." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Symbols, formulae and proofs have another hypnotic effect. Because they are not immediately understood, they, like certain jokes, are suspected of holding in some sort of magic embrace the secret of the universe, or at least some of its more hidden parts." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"The best proofs in mathematics are short and crisp like epigrams, and the longest have swings and rhythms that are like music." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"The mathematician has again been lured to an adventure with a symbolic hobbyhorse and has discovered new routes to the absolute or infinite." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"The structures of mathematics and the propositions about them are ways for the imagination to travel and the wings, or legs, or vehicles to take you where you want to go." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"The structures with which mathematics deals are more like lace, the leaves of trees, and the play of light and shadow on a human face, than they are like buildings and machines, the least of their representatives. The best proofs in mathematics are short and crisp like epigrams, and the longest have swings and rhythms that are like music. The structures of mathematics and the propositions about them are ways for the imagination to travel and the wings, or legs, or vehicles to take you where you want to go." (Scott Buchanan, "Poetry and Mathematics", 1929)
"Mathematics suffers much, but most of all from its teachers." (Scott Buchanan)
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