David Hilbert

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.

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.

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

Mathematical science is in my opinion an indivisible whole, an organism whose vitality is conditioned upon the connection of its parts.

He who seeks for methods without having a definite problem in mind seeks in the most part in vain.

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

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.

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