Physics is much too hard for physicists.

Indignant reply to the blatent sex discrimination expressed in a colleague's opposition when Hilbert proposed appointing Emmy Noether as the first woman professor at their university.

We ought not to believe those who today, adopting a philosophical air and with a tone of superiority, prophesy the decline of culter and are content with the unknowable in a self-satisfied way. For us there is no unknowable, and in my opinion there is also non whatsoever for the natural sciences. In place of this foolish unknowable, let our watchword on the contrary be: we must know - we shall know.

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

A mathematical problem should be difficult in order to entice us, yet not completely inaccessible, lest it mock at our efforts. It should be to us a guide post on the mazy paths to hidden truths, and ultimately a reminder of our pleasure in the successful solution.

Is mathematics doomed to suffer the same fate as other sciences that have split into separate branches?... Mathematics is, in my opinion, an indivisible whole... May the new century bring with it ingenious champions and many zealous and enthusiastic disciples.

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