Clergyman's

The brilliant summaries by Bourbaki and Weyl ... set a high standard of exposition, but... there is room for a history of mathematical ideas which will demand less mathematical expertise and offer a more detailed account of the motivation of research.
- George Frederick James Temple

Ninety per cent of all the mathematics we know has been discovered , in the last hundred years... the advances made in each of some dozen directions are converging into one single discipline uniting algebra, topology and analysis.
- George Frederick James Temple

During this century mathematics has been transformed...
- George Frederick James Temple

For the great majority of mathematicians, mathematics is... a whole world of invention and discovery—an art. The construction of a new theorem, the intuition of some new principle, or the creation of a new branch of mathematics is the triumph of the creative imagination of the mathematician, which can be compared to that of a poet, the painter and the sculptor.
- George Frederick James Temple

For the great majority of mathematicians, mathematics is... a whole world of invention and discovery—an art. The construction of a new theorem, the intuition of some new principle, or the creation of a new branch of mathematics is the triumph of the creative imagination of the mathematician, which can be compared to that of a poet, the painter and the sculptor.
- George Frederick James Temple

For the great majority of mathematicians, mathematics is... a whole world of invention and discovery—an art. The construction of a new theorem, the intuition of some new principle, or the creation of a new branch of mathematics is the triumph of the creative imagination of the mathematician, which can be compared to that of a poet, the painter and the sculptor.
- George Frederick James Temple

From Pythagoras to Boethius, when pure mathematics consisted of arithmetic and geometry while applied mathematics consisted of music and astronomy, mathematics could be characterized as the deductive study of 'such abstractions as quantities and their consequences, namely figures and so forth' . But since the emergence of abstract algebra it has become increasingly difficult to formulate a definition to cover the whole of the rich, complex and expanding domain of mathematics.
- George Frederick James Temple

The history of mathematics throws little light on the psychology of mathematical invention.
- George Frederick James Temple

The history of mathematics throws little light on the psychology of mathematical invention.
- George Frederick James Temple

Most mathematicians are by nature Platonists who cheerfully, unreflectingly and habitually employ such loaded phrases as 'We assume there exists...' or 'Therefore there exists...' an entity with such and such characteristics. Challenged by the realist they would probably reply that since the truths of mathematics are absolute, universal and eternal it is hard indeed to deny them an existence independent of human intelligence.
- George Frederick James Temple