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When we turn to the question, what is the essence of the infinite, we must first give ourselves an account as to the meaning the infinite has for reality: let us then see what physics teaches us about it.

— David Hilbert

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Mathematics

More quotes by David Hilbert

One of the supreme achievements of purely intellectual human activity.

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

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

Axiomatic Thought (1918)

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

Arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and geometrical figures are graphic formulas.

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Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973)

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.

Bertrand Russell

The land of easy mathematics where he who works adds up and he who retires subtracts.

Núria Añó

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: David Hilbert (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.