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G. H. Hardy Quotes about Sacrifice

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Perhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well, and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible. If a man has any genuine

Perhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well, and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible. If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.

G. H. Hardy
Sacrifice, Men, Order
G. H. Hardy (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.68, Cambridge University Press

Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess play: a chess player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game.

G. H. Hardy
Love, Sacrifice, Math
G. H. Hardy, C. P. Snow (2012). “A Mathematician's Apology”, p.94, Cambridge University Press

If a man is in any sense a real mathematician, then it is a hundred to one that his mathematics will be far better than anything else he can do, and that he would be silly if he surrendered any decent opportunity of exercising his one talent in order to do undistinguished work in other fields. Such a sacrifice could be justified only by economic necessity of age.

G. H. Hardy
Real, Silly, Sacrifice
"A Mathematician's Apology".

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