Deep focus

 “I work on things nobody cares about, and I’m quite happy that way.” - L. Mahadevan 

(via Steven Strogatz)

The attractiveness of primes for experimental mathematics...

'Although the prime numbers are rigidly determined, they somehow feel like experimental data'

Timothy Gowers. Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford Univ. Press, 2002) p.118; as cited in "surprising connections between number theory and physics"

Nature's secrets

"Nature conceals her secrets because she is sublime, not because she is a trickster" 
Albert Einstein, in a letter to Oscar Veblen