I try for a poetic language that says, This is who we are, where we have been, where we are. This is where we must go. And this is what we must do.
A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are made with ideas.
If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man.