“Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.”

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.

I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.

In a dream it’s typical not to be rational.

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.

Rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person’s concept of his relation to the cosmos.

I had been offered fellowships to enter as a graduate student at either Harvard or Princeton.

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.

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.

I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life.

To some extent, people who are insane are nonconformists, and society and their family wish they would live what appear to be useful lives.

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.

There are things that tend to moderate with age. Schizophrenia is somewhat like that.

Gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation.

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.

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.

Nowadays we can do computer experiments using Mathematica, and even solve a system of 42 equations. This offers another route to knowledge, rather than mere ideas.

A successful life is an authentic life. Happiness and creativity rest on a foundation of transparency to yourself and others. Knowing your own heart and speaking clearly to others keep you on the path.

Beauty is essentially spiritual. The authentic beauty lies in the heart.

To me, authentic love is a sacred encounter we all yearn for.

Authentic gratitude is a way of life. When you wake up in the morning let your first thought be one of thanksgiving that you have another day to walk in the love of God. As you go through your day, see the Giver behind all of the gifts freely being given to you.

When the healing grace of authentic spirituality is usurped by the divisive politics of religious organizations, and when broken hearts bleed pain in darkness

Authentic inspiration endows individuals with mental or spiritual energy which they are then able to transform into positive action.

Beauty has no other origin than the singular wound, different in every case, hidden or visible, which each man bears within himself, which he preserves, and into which he withdraws when he would quit the world for a temporary but authentic solitude.

So as a founder, you have an authenticity and a human factor that is really special and that gives an enormous amount of energy and fuel. But as a founder, you’re also not as cold, maybe, or as pragmatic.