"Personal ignorance should be admitted, but it should not be allowed to place limits and bounds on the ways 'and means of revelation."

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I think mathematics is a vast territory. The outskirts of mathematics are the outskirts of mathematical civilization. There are certain subjects that people learn about and gather together. Then there is a sort of inevitable development in those fields. You get to the point where a certain theorem is bound to be proved, independent of any particular individual, because it is just in the path of development.

— William Thurston