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Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.

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Any impatient student of mathematics or science or engineering who is irked by having algebraic symbolism thrust upon him should try to get along without it for a week.

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Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.

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Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

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There is as much difference between us and ourselves as there is between us and others.

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Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?

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Because he did not have time to read every new book in his field, the great Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski used a simple and efficient method of deciding which ones were worth his attention: Upon receiving a new book, he immediately checked the index to see if his name was cited, and how often. The more "Malinowski" the more compelling the book. No "Malinowski," and he doubted the subject of the book was anthropology at all.

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A book of quotations . . . can never be complete.

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Few things in life are more embarrassing than the necessity of having to inform an old friend that you have just got engaged to his fiancee.

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Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.

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