A Quote by Kenneth E. Boulding

Mathematicians themselves set up standards of generality and elegance in their exposition which are a bar to understand. — © Kenneth E. Boulding
Mathematicians themselves set up standards of generality and elegance in their exposition which are a bar to understand.
I have the vagary of taking a lively interest in mathematical subjects only where I may anticipate ingenious association of ideas and results recommending themselves by elegance or generality.
I think that I set such high standards for myself that sometimes I expect other people to live up to these standards, and it's not fair because they're not setting the same goals for themselves.
As for mathematicians themselves: don't expect too much help. Most of them are too far removed in their ivory towers to take up such challenges. And anyway, they are not competent. After all, they are just mathematicians-what we need is paramathematicians, like you... It is you who can be the welding force, between mathematicians and stories, in order to achieve the synthesis.
Being a Williams is not easy in this business because the bar is set very high to achieve success. Daddy set some high standards for all of us.
Relations between pure and applied mathematicians are based on trust and understanding. Namely, pure mathematicians do not trust applied mathematicians, and applied mathematicians do not understand pure mathematicians.
...the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and of forms, of geometric elegance. It is a genuinely aesthetic feeling, which all mathematicians know
I feel like I've set the bar fairly high, and I want to keep living up to that bar.
Only the mediocre are always at their best. If your standards are low, it is easy to meet those standards every single day, every single year. But if your standard is to be the best, there will be days when you fall short of that goal. It is okay to not win every game. The only problem would be if you allow a loss or a failure to change your standards. Keep your standards intact, keep the bar set high, and continue to try your very best every day to meet those standards. If you do that, you can always be proud of the work that you do.
The way in which mathematicians and physicists and historians talk is quite different, and what a physicist means by physical intuition and what a mathematician means by beauty or elegance are things worth thinking about.
I think that, because I set such high standards for myself in my first season, it became an issue of me keeping up to those standards.
The fantasy of doing a task perfectly is common with procrastinators; they set the bar for success very high. Then they are afraid to approach it. As the deadline approaches, they must set the bar lower.
I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television, yob newspapers, and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad, school, police, church who used to set the standards, now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." Ray Kroc "If some of today's leaders don't relearn the value of a smile, they'll be unable to fire up others' ability to find real enjoyment in their work.
The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.
Guided only by their feeling for symmetry, simplicity, and generality, and an indefinable sense of the fitness of things, creative mathematicians now, as in the past, are inspired by the art of mathematics rather than by any prospect of ultimate usefulness.
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