Mathematical Competence Quotes

Without numerical fluency, in the part of life most of us inhibit, you are like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

I'm really terrible at math, so I won't even attempt to do ratios and percentages, but all I know is that there's a lot of new songs that no-one has heard yet, and that there's a lot of old songs that some very, very super hardcore fans have heard for sure - there are people that have been coming and seeing me play in bars in like 2002, and there are songs that those people heard.

Yes, but you need to learn your maths." "I don't need to, really. I already know how to count to a hundred. And I'm sure I'll never need ore than a hundred of anything.

Look somewhere else for someone who can follow you in your researches about numbers. For my part, I confess that they are far beyond me, and I am competent only to admire them.

Studies show American students are becoming less proficient in math. Experts say we should have seen this coming, but nobody could put 2 and 2 together.

The oldest problem in economic education is how to exclude the incompetent. A certain glib mastery of verbiage-the ability to speak portentously and sententiously about the relation of money supply to the price level-is easy for the unlearned and may even be aided by a mildly enfeebled intellect. The requirement that there be ability to master difficult models, including ones for which mathematical competence is required, is a highly useful screening device.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

It has been my experience that competency in mathematics, both in numerical manipulations and in understanding its conceptual foundations, enhances a person's ability to handle the more ambiguous and qualitative relationships that dominate our day-to-day financial decision-making

I'm not terribly athletic. And... there's a lot of things I'm not good at. And if it makes anybody feel better, I was really a pretty bad math student growing up.