Richard P. Feynman Quotations | Page 2

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.

The easiest person to fool is yourself.

I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.

To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.

I have a friend who's an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don't agree with. He'll hold up a flower and say, "Look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. But then he'll say, "I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull." I think he's kind of nutty. [...] There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.

The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. ... If you will simply admit that maybe [Nature] does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.

The only way to deep happiness is to do something you love to the best of your ability

The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad!

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.

No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you.

I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.

Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.

We have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know.

Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science. It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure. I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

My rule is, when you are unhappy, think about it. But when you're happy, don't. Why spoil it? You're probably happy for some ridiculous reason and you'd just spoil it to know it.

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it

If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood .

The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.

Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. I don't know why. Is nobody inspired by our present picture of the universe? The value of science remains unsung by singers... This is not yet a scientific age...

To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world.

Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose!

We need to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed. It's OK to say, "I don't know."

There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.

I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics.

One of the ways of stopping science would be only to do experiments in the region where you know the law. But experimenters search most diligently, and with the greatest effort, in exactly those places where it seems most likely that we can prove our theories wrong. In other words, we are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter.

So I have just one wish for you – the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.

Teach principles not formulas.

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

We are never right, we can only be sure we are wrong.

It is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions.

Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.

If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.

What do I advise? Forget it all. Don't be afraid. Do what you get the most pleasure from. Is it to build a cloud chamber? Then go on doing things like that. Develop your talents wherever they may lead. Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!If you have any talent,or any occupation that delights you,do it, and do it to the hilt

What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does.

Observation, reason, and experiment make up what we call the scientific method.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Don't pay attention to "authorities," think for yourself.

Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.

I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb.

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

So far as we know, all the fundamental laws of physics, like Newton's equations, are reversible.

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management.

There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt.

When you are thinking about something you don't understand you have a terrible, uncomfortable feeling called confusion. The confusion is, because we are all some kind of apes that are kind of stupid trying to figure out how to put two sticks together to reach the banana, and we can't quite make it. So I always feel stupid. Once in a while, I put the two sticks together, and I reach the banana.

Doubt is clearly a value in science. It is important to doubt and that the doubt is not a fearful thing, but a thing of great value.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

But logic is not all, one needs one's heart to follow an idea.

You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying "one, two, three, four, five protons", they say, "hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron."

It's amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time.

Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!

When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of uncertainty-some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough.

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.

What did you ASK at school today?

The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity—and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.

Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.

I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me.

If you know that you are not sure, you have a chance to improve the situation. I want to demand this freedom for future generations.

The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.

Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers of the preceding generation.

The thing that doesn't fit is the thing that is most interesting.

Victory usually goes to those green enough to underestimate the monumental hurdles they are facing.

Nature does not care what we call it, she just keeps on doing it.

We find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known with different degrees of certainty: "It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true".

It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower.

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts.

If an apple was magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple.

Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion

We are not to tell nature what she’s gotta be. She's always got better imagination than we have.

Science is what we do to keep us from lying to ourselves

But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.

Why make yourself miserable saying things like, "Why do we have such bad luck? What has God done to us? What have we done to deserve this?" - all of which, if you understand reality and take it completely into your heart, are irrelevant and unsolvable. They are just things that nobody can know. Your situation is just an accident of life.

I think, however, that there isn't any solution to this problem of education other than to realize that the best teaching can be done only when there is a direct individual relationship between a student and a good teacher - a situation in which the student discusses the ideas, thinks about the things, and talks about the things. It's impossible to learn very much by simply sitting in a lecture, or even by simply doing problems that are assigned. But in our modern times we have so many students to teach that we have to try to find some substitute for the ideal.

Start out understanding religion by saying everything is possibly wrong... As soon as you do that, you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from...

For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy.

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there.

The 'paradox' is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality 'ought to be.