David Hilbert Quotes
January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943
More David Hilbert Quotes
Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician.
David Hilbert— Upon hearing that one of his students had dropped out to study poetry. (David J. Darling (2004). The Universal Book of Mathematics. John Wiley and Sons. p. 151. )
Aus dem Paradies, das Cantor uns geschaffen, soll uns niemand vertreiben können.
David Hilbert— No one shall expel us from the Paradise that Cantor has created."Über das Unendliche" [On the Infinite] in Mathematische Annalen 95, (1926)
One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it.
David Hilbert— Quoted in Mathematical Circles Revisited (1971) by Howard Whitley Eves
Mathematics knows no races or geographic boundaries; for mathematics, the cultural world is one country.
David Hilbert— Quoted in Mathematical Circles Revisited (1971) by Howard Whitley Eves
If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology.
David Hilbert— Quoted in Comic Sections (1993) by Desmond MacHale
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— Quoted in Mathematical Mysteries : The Beauty and Magic of Numbers (1999) by Calvin C. Clawson, p. 258
One of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.
David Hilbert— On the Cantor set, as quoted in A World Without Time : The Forgotten Legacy of Godel and Einstein (2005) by Palle Yourgrau, p. 44
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— Hilbert-Courant (1984) by Constance Reid, p. 174
Keep computations to the lowest level of the multiplication table.
David Hilbert— Hilbert-Courant (1984) by Constance Reid, p. 104
Begin with the simplest examples.
David Hilbert— Hilbert-Courant (1984) by Constance Reid, p. 104
I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as a Privatdozent. After all, the Senate is not a bath-house.
David Hilbert— Hilbert-Courant (1984) by Constance Reid, p. 143
Every kind of science, if it has only reached a certain degree of maturity, automatically becomes a part of mathematics.
David Hilbert— Axiomatic Thought (1918), printed in from Kant to Hilbert, Vol. 2 by Ewald
An old French mathematician said: A mathematical theory is not to be considered complete until you have made it so clear that you can explain it to the first man whom you meet on the street. This clearness and ease of comprehension, here insisted on for a mathematical theory, I should still more demand for a mathematical problem if it is to be perfect; for what is clear and easily comprehended attracts, the complicated repels us.
David Hilbert— Eine mathematische Theorie ist nicht eher als vollkommen anzusehen, als bis du sie so klar gemacht hast, daß du sie dem ersten Manne erklären könntest, den du auf der Straße triffst.
Physics is too difficult for physicists!
David Hilbert— This quote has many variants. An early version attributed to the Göttingen School appears in a book review by Heinrich Wieleitner in Isis, Volume 7, No. 4, December 1925, p. 597: Ach, die Physik! Die ist ja für die Physiker viel zu schwer! (Oh, physics! That's just too difficult for the physicists!).
"Mathematics is a presuppositionless science. To found it I do not need God, as does Kronecker, or the assumption of a special faculty of our understanding attuned to the principle of mathematical induction, as does Poincaré, or the primal intuition of Brouwer, or, finally, as do Russell and Whitehead, axioms of infinity, reducibility, or completeness, which in fact are actual, contentual assumptions that cannot be compensated for by consistency proofs.
David Hilbert— Quoted in Hilbert's Die Grundlagen der Mathematik (1927)
