John Forbes Nash quotes

John Forbes Nash was an American mathematician renowned for his pioneering work in game theory. His groundbreaking ideas have influenced economics, mathematics, and even evolutionary biology. He struggled with mental illness but ultimately achieved worldwide recognition, including a Nobel Prize in Economics. Here are 41 of his quotes:

Though I had success in my research both when I was mad and when I was not, eventually I felt that my work would be better respected if I thought and acted like a 'normal' person. (John Forbes Nash)
I would not dare to say that there is a direct relation between mathematics and madness, but there is no doubt that great mathematicians suffer from maniacal characteristics, delirium and symptoms of schizophrenia. View quote
John Forbes Nash
To some extent, people who are insane are nonconformists, and society and their family wish they would live what appear to be useful lives. View quote
John Forbes Nash
Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity. View quote
John Forbes Nash
You don't have to be a mathematician to have a feel for numbers. View quote
John Forbes Nash
People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. View quote
John Forbes Nash
Statistically, it would seem improbable that any mathematician or scientist, at the age of 66, would be able through continued research efforts, to add much to his or her previous achievements. However I am still making the effort and it is conceivable that with the gap period of about 25 years of partially deluded thinking providing a sort of vacation my situation may be atypical. Thus I have hopes of being able to achieve something of value through my current studies or with any new ideas that come in the future. View quote
John Forbes Nash
The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart. View quote
John Forbes Nash
Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. View quote
John Forbes Nash
In madness, I thought I was the most important person in the world. View quote
John Forbes Nash
Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos. (John Forbes Nash)
In a dream it's typical not to be rational. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I had been offered fellowships to enter as a graduate student at either Harvard or Princeton. But the Princeton fellowship was somewhat more generous, since I had not actually won the Putnam competition... Thus Princeton became the choice for my graduate study location. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I later spent... five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis, and always attempting a legal argument for release. View quote
John Forbes Nash
At the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. One aspect of this is that rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I would finally renounce my delusionally hypotheses and revert to thinking of myself as a human of more conventional circumstances and return to mathematical research. View quote
John Forbes Nash
By the time I was a student in high school I was reading the classic Men of Mathematics by E. T. Bell and I remember succeeding in proving the classic Fermat theorem about an integer multiplied by itself p times where p is a prime. View quote
John Forbes Nash
As a graduate student I studied mathematics fairly broadly and I was fortunate enough, besides developing the idea which led to "Non-Cooperative Games," also to make a nice discovery relating to manifolds and real algebraic varieties. So I was prepared actually for the possibility that the game theory work would not be regarded as acceptable as a thesis in the mathematics department and then that I could realize the objective of a Ph. D. thesis with the other results. View quote
John Forbes Nash
People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better. In madness, I thought I was the most important person in the world. View quote
John Forbes Nash
~ I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You're the only reason I am... you're all my reasons.~. View quote
John Forbes Nash
As you will find in multivariable calculus, there is often a number of solutions for any given problem. (John Forbes Nash)
There are things that tend to moderate with age. Schizophrenia is somewhat like that. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I know that if I could really understand mental illness, then it would be appropriate to make a big career shift. I would become a therapist and a leader in terms of mental illness. But I'm not in the position. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health. View quote
John Forbes Nash
I never saw my grandfather because he had died before I was born, but I have good memories of my grandmother and of how she could play the piano at the old house. View quote
John Forbes Nash