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Every mathematical discipline goes through three periods of development: the naive, the formal, and the critical.

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.
Critical
Periods
Discipline
Development
Goes
Three
Naive
Every
Formal
Mathematical

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Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.
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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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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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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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I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.
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Geometry is the most complete science.
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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 kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
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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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The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.
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