Bereft Quotes (2 quotes)
As an Art, Mathematics has its own standard of beauty and elegance which can vie with the more decorative arts. In this it is diametrically opposed to a Baroque art which relies on a wealth of ornamental additions. Bereft of superfluous addenda, Mathematics may appear, on first acquaintance, austere and severe. But longer contemplation reveals the classic attributes of simplicity relative to its significance and depth of meaning.
In The Skeleton Key of Mathematics (1949), 12.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of Wet and Wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wilderness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Of Wet and Wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wilderness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
'Inversnaid' (1881), reprinted in Gerard Manley Hopkins and Michael White (ed.) Some Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, (1945), 16, stanza 4.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
