I am interested in mathematics only as a creative art.
Interpretation
Hardy views mathematics as a form of creative expression rather than just a practical tool.
G. H. Hardy's statement emphasizes the idea that mathematics is not merely a subject for utilitarian purposes, but rather an art form that embodies beauty and creativity. This perspective elevates mathematics to the level of other artistic endeavors, suggesting that understanding and appreciation of mathematical concepts can evoke the same sense of wonder and imaginative thinking that art does.
In practice
During a lecture on the philosophy of mathematics, this quote can be used to emphasize the artistic side of the subject.
A chess problem is genuine mathematics, but it is in some way "trivial" mathematics. However, ingenious and intricate, however original and surprising the moves, there is something essential lacking. Chess problems are unimportant. The best mathematics is serious as well as beautiful-"important" if you like, but the word is very ambiguous, and "serious" expresses what I mean much better.
Mathematics is not a contemplative but a creative subject; no one can draw much consolation from it when he has lost the power or the desire to create; and that is apt to happen to a mathematician rather soon. It is a pity, but in that case he does not matter a great deal anyhow, and it would be silly to bother about him.
Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
It is hardly possible to maintain seriously that the evil done by science is not altogether outweighed by the good. For example, if ten million lives were lost in every war, the net effect of science would still have been to increase the average length of life.
Real mathematics must be justified as art if it can be justified at all.
If intellectual curiosity, professional pride, and ambition are the dominant incentives to research, then assuredly no one has a fairer chance of gratifying them than a mathematician.
To this urn let those repair_x000D_ _x000D_ That are either true or fair;_x000D_ _x000D_ For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history.
I have had the good fortune of being able to sing with many of the finest voices in the world, and for someone who loves voices as I do, this is an enormous privilege.
We know there are poets who are chosen: by what or whom, we no more know than what lies beyond our final breath, or what caused a certain action which resulted in the fulfillment or the desecration and collapse of what we most cared for in life.
In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example, or Victor Hugo. They can't help it. Even if they don't believe in that, it gets in their system. And so when they come to produce something of their own, the tradition is nearly indestructible.
We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them?
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