Martin Gardner

“In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for a beginner to stumble upon an unsolved problem.”

“There is in all things a pattern, and a wise man is he who can find it.”

“A surprising number of scientists are secretly mystics.”

“A paradox is a truth standing on its head to attract attention.”

“I am a philosophical theist. I believe in a personal god, and I believe in an afterlife, and I believe in prayer.”

“Scientific progress is a kind of controlled anarchy.”

“Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid dictators, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals — the flotsam and jetsam of historical moments.”

“Most magicians are honest people; they sell illusions.”

“The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.”

“The sudden enlightenment that accompanies the solution of a problem is its own reward.”

“I have a deep conviction that our universe is not a meaningless accident.”

“I belong to a group of thinkers known as 'mysterians.' We believe that consciousness is a mystery that the human mind will never solve.”

“Nothing is more beautiful than a beautiful proof.”