A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns... The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's, must be beautiful; the ideas, like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics. -G.H. Hardy

Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery of simplicity. — Erik Christopher Zeeman