It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.

— Sofia Kovalevskaya, Sónya Kovalévsky: Her Recollections of Childhood (1895)

Source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=piXLnHCwZxUC

From her childhood recollections, in Isabel Hapgood's 1895 translation.

Topics: creativity, mathematics