Richard Feynman Quotes
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If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions - for the fun of it - then one day you'll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one! And that's the way to become a computer scientist.
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I don't believe I can really do without teaching.
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Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.
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It is the fact that the electrons cannot all get on top of each other that makes tables and everything else solid.
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Beyond poverty, beyond the point that the material needs are reasonably satisfied, only from within is peace.
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So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentaliz ation is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them.
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So my antagonist said, "Is it impossible that there are flying saucers? Can you prove that it's impossible?" "No," I said, "I can't prove it's impossible. It's just very unlikely." At that he said, "You are very unscientific. If you can't prove it impossible then how can you say that it's unlikely?" But that is the way that is scientific. It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely, and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.
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I love to think. I once considered taking drugs as an attempt to better understand an altered state of mind; however, I decided not to. I didn't want to chance ruining the machine.
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A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe.
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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.
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As you know, a theory in physics is not useful unless it is able to predict underlined effects which we would otherwise expect.
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The exception tests the rule.
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Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
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Science is of value because it can produce something.
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Winning a Nobel Prize is no big deal, but winning it with an IQ of 124 is really something.
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There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.
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We scientists are clever — too clever — are you not satisfied? Is four square miles in one bomb not enough? Men are still thinking. Just tell us how big you want it!
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The unanswerable mysteries... the attitude that all is uncertain... to summarize it - the humility of the intellect.
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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.
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This is not very important what I'm doing. I'm just proving something.
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One cannot understand... the universality of laws of nature, the relationship of things, without an understanding of mathematics. There is no other way to do it.
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The basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual... the humility of the spirit.
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Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible.
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I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.