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One must be able to say at all times--instead of points, straight lines, and planes--tables, chairs, and beer mugs

David Hilbert

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David Hilbert
Age: 81 †
Born: 1862
Born: January 23
Died: 1943
Died: February 14
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
University Teacher
Königsberg i. Pr.
Beer
Tables
Straight
Instead
Mugs
Lines
Mug
Times
Chairs
Able
Planes
Must
Points

More quotes by David Hilbert

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Physics is becoming too difficult for the physicists.
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Galileo was no idiot. Only an idiot could believe that science requires martyrdom - that may be necessary in religion, but in time a scientific result will establish itself.
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No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us. Expressing the importance of Cantor's set theory in the development of mathematics.
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[On Cantor's work:] The finest product of mathematical genius and one of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.
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No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite.
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Every mathematical discipline goes through three periods of development: the naive, the formal, and the critical.
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Sometimes it happens that a man's circle of horizon becomes smaller and smaller, and as the radius approaches zero it concentrates on one point. And then that becomes his point of view.
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If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.
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Geometry is the most complete science.
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Indignant reply to the blatent sex discrimination expressed in a colleague's opposition when Hilbert proposed appointing Emmy Noether as the first woman professor at their university.
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The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separated branches of the science.
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Is mathematics doomed to suffer the same fate as other sciences that have split into separate branches?... Mathematics is, in my opinion, an indivisible whole... May the new century bring with it ingenious champions and many zealous and enthusiastic disciples.
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The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.
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Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
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The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.
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I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as a Privatdozent. After all, the Senate is not a bathhouse. Objecting to sex discrimination being the reason for rejection of Emmy Noether's application to join the faculty at the University of Gottingen.
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Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
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We do not master a scientific theory until we have shelled and completely prised free its mathematical kernel.
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Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure.
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Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
David Hilbert