“Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.”

“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”

“The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with the addition of certain verbal interpretations, describes observed phenomena. The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work - that is correctly to describe phenomena from a reasonably wide area. Furthermore, it must satisfy certain esthetic criteria - that is, in relation to how much it describes, it must be rather simple.”

“It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.”

“Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.”

“Se la gente non crede che la matematica è semplice, è solo perché non capisce quanto è complicata la vita.”

“The fabric of archetypal canon which used to support the average man has given way... [p. 439]”