Richard p. feynman quotes

There is no authority who decides what is a good idea.

If a guy tells me the probability of failure is 1 in 100,000, I know he's full of crap.

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

Everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.

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

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

[Quantum mechanics] describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is - absurd.

To develop working ideas efficiently, I try to fail as fast as I can.

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

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.

What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.

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

What did you ASK at school today?

Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that all the lessons are true... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

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

The game I play is a very interesting one. It's imagination, in a tight straightjacket.

It does not matter who you are, or how smart you are, or what title you have, or how many of you there are, and certainly not how many papers your side has published, if your prediction is wrong then your hypothesis is wrong. Period.

Experiment is the sole judge of the validity of any idea.

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

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

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!

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.

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

It turns out that all life is interconnected with all other life.

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.

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

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

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

I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder.

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

I was terrible in English. I couldn't stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention--it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature. Any word can be spelled just as well a different way.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.

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.

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.

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.

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

There is enough energy in a single cubic meter of space to boil all the oceans in the world.

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

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

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

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.

Physics is not the most important thing. Love is.

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!

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

Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Fall in love with some activity, and do it! 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. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

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 certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

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.

Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion

Maybe that is why young people make success. They don't know enough.

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.

The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in - a trial and error system.

Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.

Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, "Is it reasonable?"

The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific "truth." But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints. But also needed is imagination to create from these hints the great generalizations--to guess at the wonderful, simple, but very strange patterns beneath them all, and then to experiment to check again whether we have made the right guess.

It is simple, therefore it is beautiful

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

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

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

Winning a Nobel Prize is no big deal, but winning it with an IQ of 124 is really something.

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

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. There are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask "Why are we here?" I might think about it a little bit, and if I can't figure it out then I go on to something else. But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose - which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell.

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

Physics is to mathematics what sex is to masturbation.

Outside of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as the next person.

I have a limited intelligence and I've used it in a particular direction.

Few people realize the number of things that are possible.

The test of all knowledge is experiment.

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

The electron is a theory. But the theory is so good we can almost consider them real.

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.

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.

When things are going well, something will go wrong. / When things just can't get any worse, they will. / Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

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

The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.

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

Whenever you see a sweeping statement that a tremendous amount can come from a very small number of assumptions, you always find that it is false. There are usually a large number of implied assumptions that are far from obvious if you think about them sufficiently carefully.

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

Science is uncertain.

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.

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

First you guess. Don't laugh, this is the most important step. Then you compute the consequences. Compare the consequences to experience. If it disagrees with experience, the guess is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't matter how beautiful your guess is or how smart you are or what your name is. If it disagrees with experience, it's wrong. That's all there is to it.

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.

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

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.

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

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong.

John von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!

You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.

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

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.

A scientist is never certain. ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning.

I do believe that there is a conflict between science and religion ... the spirit or attitude toward the facts is different in religion from what it is in science. The uncertainty that is necessary in order to appreciate nature is not easily correlated with the feeling of certainty in faith.

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

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

You do not know anything until you have practiced.

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

Teach principles not formulas.

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.

Work hard to find something that fascinates you.

If you don't like it, go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler.

Mathematics is not just a language. Mathematics is a language plus reasoning.

If you have any talent, or any occupation that delights you, do it, and do it to the hilt. Don't ask why, or what difficulties you may get into.

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.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

A great deal more is known than has been proved.

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!

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

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.

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.

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

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.