Paul Krugman on what made Paul Samuelson great

The moral, I believe, is that only someone who doesn’t take himself too seriously is really fit to produce ideas that make the world a much better place. Paul Samuelson didn’t, and he did.

That's from Paul Krugman's remarks at the service held in honor of Prof. Paul Samuelson. Here's a bit about Samuelson's playful geekery:

... We talk about people playing with ideas; Paul Samuelson really did, and it shows throughout his writings. There’s an irrepressible quality to his best work, a sense of someone having a huge amount of fun and wanting to share it with the rest of us. One of his most influential papers ... is brimming with humor, from its mock-pompous title -– “An exact consumption-loan model of interest, with or without the contrivance of money” -– to the footnote that begins, “Surely, no sentence beginning with the word ‘surely’ can validly contain a question mark at its end?”