I didn't work especially hard at mathematics at school, because I knew that's what I'd be doing later.

Physics is much too hard for physicists.

Before beginning [to try to prove Fermat's Last Theorem] I should have to put in three years of intensive study, and I haven't that much time to squander on a probable failure.

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.

For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion none whatever in natural science. In opposition to the foolish ignorabimus our slogan shall be: "We must know - we will know!"

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

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