Elementary, my dear Watson.

Sherlock Holmes (1929)

We may always depend upon it that algebra, which cannot be translated into good English and sound common sense, is bad algebra.

William Kingdon Clifford (1885)

Angling may be said to be so like the Mathematicks, that it can never be fully learnt.

Izaak Walton (1653)

At Kent he was curious about computer science but in just the introductory course Math 10 061 in Merrill Hall the math got to be too much for him.

John Updike (1981)

At the mathematical school, the proposition and demonstration were fairly written on a thin wafer, with ink composed of a cephalic tincture. This the student was to swallow upon a fasting stomach, and for three days following eat nothing but bread and water. As the wafer digested, the tincture mounted to his brain, bearing the proposition along with it.

Jonathan Swift (1726)