The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable. Be relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and, in effect, increases the mental power of the race. Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it. Seek simplicity, and distrust it.
Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.
We think in generalities, but we live in details. Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions. It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance.