Everybody Hates Mathematics/Quotes

"Mathematics has the dubious honor of being the least popular subject in the curriculum ... Future teachers pass through the elementary schools learning to detest mathematics. They drop it in high school as early as possible. They avoid it in teachers' colleges because it is not required. They return to the elementary school to teach a new generation to detest it."

—Report to the Educational Testing Service Princeton, New Jersey, as quoted in TIME magazine (18 June 1956)

"The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell."

—Augustine of Hippo

"No! I can't take another minute in the cold unyielding world of numbers!"

—Mikey, Recess

"Arrr! Math be hard, let's go shopping!"

—LeChuckie doll, The Curse of Monkey Island

"I'm afraid we need to use... MATH."

—Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

Math. The enemy of all things good.

—Bobo, Generator Rex

"All of these complaints [about how mathematics are taught] aside, the real problem with this kind of presentation is that it is boring. Efficiency and economy simply do not make good pedagogy. I have a hard time believing that Euclid would approve of this; I know Archimedes wouldn’t."

—Paul Lockhart, A Mathematician's Lament

"I don't understand how [math] can be so difficult.
They're only formulas - you just have to do exactly what you're supposed to, one step at a time...
But, just when I think I have it figured out, I realize that it's the wrong answer!"

—Hoshi to Shoji, Highschool Romance