David Hilbert Quotes about Math

Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.

Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.

The art of doing mathematics consists in finding that special case which contains all the germs of generality.

One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it

Besides it is an error to believe that rigour is the enemy of simplicity. On the contrary we find it confirmed by numerous examples that the rigorous method is at the same time the simpler and the more easily comprehended. The very effort for rigor forces us to find out simpler methods of proof.

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.

The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man.

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.

How thoroughly it is ingrained in mathematical science that every real advance goes hand in hand with the invention of sharper tools and simpler methods which, at the same time, assist in understanding earlier theories and in casting aside some more complicated developments.

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.

I have tried to avoid long numerical computations, thereby following Riemann's postulate that proofs should be given through ideas and not voluminous computations.

The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.

Physics is much too hard for physicists.