I have always hated machinery, and the only machine I ever understood was a wheelbarrow, and that but imperfectly.
Science makes no pretension to eternal truth or absolute truth
Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions.
The pursuit of pretty formulas and neat theorems can no doubt quickly degenerate into a silly vice, but so also can the quest for austere generalities which are so very general indeed that they are incapable of application to any particular.