Richard Feynman Quotes
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People are always asking for the latest developments in the unification of this theory with that theory, and they don't give us a chance to tell them anything about what we know pretty well. They always want to know the things we don't know.
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Few people realize the number of things that are possible.
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I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
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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.
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I learned from her that every woman is worried about her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.
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The exception tests the rule.
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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 other thing that gives a scientific man the creeps in the world today are the methods of choosing leaders - in every nation. Today, for example, in the United States, the two political parties have decided to employ public relations men, that is, advertising men, who are trained in the necessary methods of telling the truth or lying in order to develop a product.
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I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.
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If a guy tells me the probability of failure is 1 in 100,000, I know he's full of crap.
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If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.
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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.
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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.
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No! Not for a second! I immediately began to think how this could have happened. And I realized that the clock was old and was always breaking. That the clock probably stopped some time before and the nurse coming in to the room to record the time of death would have looked at the clock and jotted down the time from that. I never made any supernatural connection, not even for a second. I just wanted to figure out how it happened.
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You see, I get such fun out of thinking that I don't want to destroy this most pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick.
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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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The problem of creating something new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.
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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.
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Every instrument that has been designed to be sensitive enough to detect weak light has always ended up discovering that the same thing: light is made of particles.
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Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.
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If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.
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This is not very important what I'm doing. I'm just proving something.
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I am a successful lecturer in physics for popular audiences. The real entertainment gimmick is the excitement, drama and mystery of the subject matter. People love to learn something, they are 'entertained' enormously by being allowed to understand a little bit of something they never understood before. One must have faith in the subject and in people's interest in it.
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I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never.