A Quote by David Hilbert

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.

David Hilbert

Quote Topics

Adopting Air Also Believe Content Contrary Decline Foolish In My Opinion Know Must Natural Natural Science Natural Sciences On The Contrary Opinion Ought Our Philosophical Place Satisfied Sciences Self Shall Superiority Those Today Tone Unknowable Us Way Whatsoever

Quote Author

David Hilbert
German - Mathematician
January 23, 1862 - February 14, 1943

To say that we cannot know anything about God is to say something about God; it is to say that if there is a God, he is unknowable. But in that case, he is not entirely unknowable, for the agnostic certainly thinks that we can know one thing about him: That nothing else can be known about him.

J. Budziszewski

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!"

David Hilbert

I don't try to define the cosmos, I know it's unknowable, but I can understand my place in the world and my place in the universe through a mixture of Taoism, Catholicism, Zen or whatever I have at hand.

Guillermo del Toro

But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome - people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.

Elizabeth Gilbert

There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is.

Daniel Dennett

Difference of opinion has never been sufficiently appreciated. It is the unexpected, the unknowable, the divine irrationality of life that saves us.

Florida Scott-Maxwell

Only he who crosses the stream of life wishes to know what is known as unknowable.

Gautama Buddha

As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.

Abraham Robinson

You know, on the spectrum of religious belief, there is atheism - these are people that don't believe. There's theism - these are the believers and agnostics say it's beyond comprehension that the whole issue of God us unknowable. You might be interested to know that perhaps the greatest mind of the 20th century Einstein, the one time that he actually used one of these appellations was in a letter about five years before he died and he referred to himself as an agnostic.

Vincent Bugliosi

It is strange to reflect how much energy is thrown away in attempting to know the unknowable.

Joseph Barber Lightfoot

It is natural that people should differ most, and most violently, about the unknowable . . . There is all the room in the world for divergence of opinion about something that, so far as we can realistically perceive, does not exist.

E. Haldeman-Julius

I do like the idea that tomorrow I might find out that I'm going to be doing something that is completely unknowable today. I think it forces you to live in the moment in a very good way.

Paul Rudd

Men don't know anything! Men don't know when their lives became so entirely awful, when everyone else turned into such a tosser! A man does not know how he came by the half a pie he is holding in his hand. And scientists - those frauds - seize on this, and try to use it as proof of the mysteries of human consciousness and the unknowable nature of the brain, which is rubbish!

Dylan Moran

Logic only tells us what's there; it can't really address what isn't. Even the most devoted empiricist must admit that we have no hope of understanding the universe. Some things are unknowable.