[738]. There is perhaps no science of which the development has been carried so far, which requires greater concentration and will power, and which by the abstract height of the qualities required tends more to separate one from daily life.
Provisional Report of the American Subcommittee of the International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics; Bulletin American Society (1910), p. 97.
[739]. Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics, that it can never be fully learnt.—Walton, Isaac.
The Complete Angler, Preface.
[740]. The flights of the imagination which occur to the pure mathematician are in general so much better described in his formulæ than in words, that it is not remarkable to find the subject treated by outsiders as something essentially cold and uninteresting—... the only successful attempt to invest mathematical reasoning with a halo of glory—that made in this section by Prof. Sylvester—is known to a comparative few,....—Tait, P. G.
Presidential Address British Association for the Advancement of Science (1871); Nature Vol. 4, p. 271.