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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.

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.
Didn
School
Hard
Work
Mathematics
Later
Especially
Knew

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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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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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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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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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Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts.
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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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Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
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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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Some people have got a mental horizon of radius zero and call it their point of view.
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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
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The tool which serves as intermediary between theory and practice, between thought and observation, is mathematics it is mathematics which builds the linking bridges and gives the ever more reliable forms.
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The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.
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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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[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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Geometry, like arithmetic, requires for its logical development only a small number of simple, fundamental principles. These fundamental principles are called the axioms of geometry.
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Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
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Geometry is the most complete science.
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The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.
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