David Hilbert

If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: Has the Riemann hypothesis been…

— David Hilbert

The tool which serves as intermediary between theory and practice, between thought and observation, is mathematics; it is mathematics which builds the…

— David Hilbert

The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between…

— David Hilbert

Sometimes it happens that a man's circle of horizon becomes smaller and smaller, and as the radius approaches zero it concentrates on…

— David Hilbert

As long as a branch of science offers an abundance of problems, so long it is alive; a lack of problems foreshadows…

— David Hilbert

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

— David Hilbert

Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I…

— David Hilbert

If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid…

— David Hilbert

Is mathematics doomed to suffer the same fate as other sciences that have split into separate branches?... Mathematics is, in my opinion,…

— David Hilbert

“Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen. ( We must know. We will know .) [ Inscribed on his tomb in Gottingen .]”

— David Hilbert

For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our…

— David Hilbert

Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.

— David Hilbert

Indignant reply to the blatent sex discrimination expressed in a colleague's opposition when Hilbert proposed appointing Emmy Noether as the first woman…

— David Hilbert