to prosecute research, but three which are much more important

than the rest. The first (without which the rest must come to

nothing) is intellectual curiosity, desire to know the truth. Then,

professional pride, anxiety to be satisfied with one’s performance,

the shame that overcomes any self-respecting craftsman when his

work is unworthy of his talent. Finally, ambition, desire for

reputation, and the position, even the power or the money, which

it brings. It may be fine to feel, when you have done your work,

that you have added to the happiness or alleviated the sufferings

of others, but that will not be why you did it. So if a mathematician,

or a chemist, or even a physiologist, were to tell me that the

driving force in his work had been the desired to benefit

humanity, then I should not believe him (nor should I think the

better of him if I did). His dominant motives have been those

which I have stated, and in which, surely, there is nothing of

which any decent man need be ashamed."

-G. H. Hardy