"And we didn't have cell phones. If you made plans to meet someone in a snow storm, and they didn't show up, you just had to assume they were devoured by wolves and go on with your life."

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An axiomatic system establishes a reverberating relationship between what a mathematician assumes (the axioms) and what he or she can derive (the theorems). In the best of circumstances, the relationship is clear enough so that the mathematician can submit his or her reasoning to an informal checklist, passing from step to step with the easy confidence the steps are small enough so that he cannot be embarrassed nor she tripped up.

— David Berlinski