If so, it seems that Polya wasn't always as diligently persistent as he advised others to be. There's a famous story about G H Hardy seeing a bear in a zoo: it

If so, it seems that Polya wasn't always as diligently persistent as he advised others to be. There's a famous story about G H Hardy seeing a bear in a zoo: it sniffed at the lock on its cage, hit the lock once with its paw, and then turned away to do something else. "He is like Polya: he has excellent ideas, but he does not carry them out."