Recently, my dissertation work was awarded the ACM India Dissertation award!
The essence of mathematics is proving theorems — and so, that is what mathematicians do: They prove theorems. But to tell the truth, what they really want to prove, once in their lifetime, is a Lemma, like the one by Fatou in analysis, the Lemma of Gauss in number theory, or the Burnside–Frobenius Lemma in combinatorics.
Now what makes a mathematical statement a true Lemma? First, it should be applicable to a wide variety of instances, even seemingly unrelated problems. Secondly, the statement should, once you have seen it, be completely obvious. The reaction of the reader might well be one of faint envy: Why haven’t I noticed this before? And thirdly, on an esthetic level, the Lemma — including its proof — should be beautiful!
-- Proofs from THE BOOK