David Hilbert QUOTES

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

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

― David Hilbert

3 " We must know. We will know. "

― David Hilbert

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

― David Hilbert

5 " Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen. "

― David Hilbert

6 " Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician.

[Upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to study poetry] "

― David Hilbert

7 " 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. "

― David Hilbert

8 " Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen. (We must know. We will know.)

[Inscribed on his tomb in Gottingen.] "

― David Hilbert

9 " No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us.

{Expressing the importance of Georg Cantor's set theory in the development of mathematics.} "

― David Hilbert

10 " If I were to awaken after having slept for a thousand years, my first question would be: has the Riemann Hypothesis been proven? "

― David Hilbert

11 " … he who seeks for methods without having a definite problem in mind seeks for the most part in vain. "

― David Hilbert

12 " No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created for us. "

― David Hilbert

13 " We hear within us the perpetual call: There is the problem. Seek its solution. "

― David Hilbert ,

14 " But above all I wish to designate the following as the most important among the numerous questions which can be asked with regard to the axioms: To prove that they are not contradictory, that is, that a definite number of logical steps based upon them can never lead to contradictory results. "

― David Hilbert

15 " Only an idiot could believe that scientific truth needs martyrdom; that may be necessary in religion, but scientific results prove themselves in due time "

― David Hilbert

16 " Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen.
Dobbiamo sapere, sapremo. "

― David Hilbert

17 " Wir dürfen nicht denen glauben, die heute mit philosophischer Miene und über-legenem Tone den Kulturuntergang prophezeien und sich in dem Ignorabimus gefallen. Füruns gibt es kein Ignorabimus, und meiner Meinung nach auch für die Naturwissenschaftüberhaupt nicht. Statt des törichten Ignorabimus heisse im Gegenteil unsere Lösung: Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen. "

― David Hilbert

18 " Wir dürfen nicht denen glauben, die heute mit philosophischer Miene und über-legenem Tone den Kulturuntergang prophezeien und sich in dem Ignorabimus gefallen. Füruns gibt es kein Ignorabimus, und meiner Meinung nach auch für die Naturwissenschaftüberhaupt nicht. Statt des törichten Ignorabimus heisse im Gegenteil unsere Lösung: Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen. (translation: We must not believe those, who today, with philosophical bearing and deliberative tone, prophesy the fall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: We must know. We will know.) "

― David Hilbert