Richard Feynman Quotes
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We have a habit in writing articles published in scientific journals to make the work as finished as possible, to cover up all the tracks, to not worry about the blind alleys or describe how you had the wrong idea first, and so on. So there isn't any place to publish, in a dignified manner, what you actually did in order to get to do the work, although, there has been in these days, some interest in this kind of thing.
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This attitude of mind - this attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, we cannot retreat from it anymore.
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Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?
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Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.
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Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.
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Don't worry about anything. Go out and have a good time.
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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.
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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.
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If you don't like it, go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler.
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You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity. When you get it right, it is obvious that it is right -- at least if you have any experience -- because usually what happens is that more comes out than goes in.
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Any schemes - such as 'think of symmetry laws', or 'put the information in mathematical form', or 'guess equations'- are known to everybody now, and they are all tried all the time. When you are stuck, the answer cannot be one of these, because you will have tried these right away...The next scheme, the new discovery, is going to be made in a completely different way.
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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.
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The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things.
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A scientist is never certain. ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning.
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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.
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A person talks in such generalities that everyone can understand him and it's considered to be some deep philosophy. However, I would like to be very rather more special and I would like to be understood in an honest way, rather than in a vague way.
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If you thought you were trying to find out more about it because you're gonna get an answer to some deep philosophical question...you may be wrong! It may be that you can't get an answer to that particular question by finding out more about the character of nature. But my interest in science is to simply find out about the world.
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I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.
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I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good.
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If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives.
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I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
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You should not fool the laymen when you're talking as a scientist... . I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, an integrity that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.
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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.
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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.