"How enticing science now seems to me! How lovely knowledge must be! In its richly objective sphere, one could forget the self in order to dissolve into ecstasy. Perhaps I don’t have enough brains to be a scientist, to understand thoroughly what is studied. Yet my deepest wish is to be able to do so, and one should always try." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
"Mathematics, when untouched by applications to other sciences, can easily be diverted onto some of the obscure paths of formalism and philosophizing." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
"Number is the beginning and the end of thought. With thought, number is born. Without number, thought goes nowhere." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
" Our will and testament has come about out of a vigorous conviction that a nation that does not highly esteem mathematical thought can never be capable of achieving the highest cultural goals and thereby enjoy the international respect which, in the long term, is an effective means of maintaining our position in the world, as well as asserting our right to live our own lives." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
"The best and highest purpose in my life has been the cultivation of the science which is the most abstract and most cosmopolitan of all, which less than any other is nourished by roots in its own homeland." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
"The mathematician's best work is art […] a high and perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch each other." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
"The reason for the usual but highly superficial view of mathematics that perceives this field of study as demanding more special talents than the study of any other science is the fact that all other school subjects can be learned superficially, as merely dead lessons learned by rote, but that this is nearly impossible with mathematics." (M Gustav Mittag-Leffler)
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