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

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.
David Hilbert

No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite.
David Hilbert

The further a mathematical theory is developed, the more harmoniously and uniformly does its construction proceed, and unsuspected relations are disclosed between hitherto separated branches of the science.
David Hilbert

Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper.
David Hilbert

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

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