It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to mathematics, and not to talk about what he or other mathematicians have done. Statesmen despise publicists, painters despise art-critics, and physiologists, physicists, or mathematicians have usually similar feelings; there is no scorn more profound, or on the whole more justifiable, than that of the men who make for the men who explain. Exposition, criticism, appreciation, is work for second-rate minds.
“一个职业数学家写关于数学的事是悲哀的。数学家的本分是做点什么，创出一些新的公理，替数学增加一点，而不是谈论自己或其它数学家做了些什么。政治人物鄙视评论政治的人，画家鄙视艺术评论者，生理学家、物理学家，或数学家通常都有类似的感受。没有任何嘲笑，能比创作者对解释者的嘲笑来得深奥，或在整体上更为合理。阐释、批评、欣赏，都是只有二等脑子的人的工作。”