Richard Feynman Quotes

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

Nature’s imagination is so much greater than man’s, she’s never going to let us relax.

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

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

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

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.

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

I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

The pleasure in physics lies in finding things out, and not in seeing the things as useful.

Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty.

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

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.

Richard Feynman Quotes part 2

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.

You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.

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

Experiment is the sole judge of scientific truth.

It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe beyond man, to think of what it means for us as a species, and to try to understand our humble position within it.

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

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.

If you expect science to give all the answers to the wonderful questions we have, then I think you could easily become disillusioned and then look for some mystic answer to these problems.

Scientific understanding is a kind of thirst for knowledge.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is ‘mere’. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

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.

Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.

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

What do you care what other people think?

The world is full of things that are beyond human comprehension.

It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English — up to fifty words used in correct context — no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.

I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, But how can it be like that? because you will get ‘down the drain’, into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

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

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

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

A great deal of the mystery of life, a great deal of the wonderful working of nature, of the phenomena that we see around us, is in fact not mysterious.

It is very important to look at what is not seen as well as at what is seen.

Nature isn’t classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you’d better make it quantum mechanical.

The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things if you look at it right. And if you magnify it and look at it in a very fine-grained way, it’s all a bunch of atoms jiggling around.

The world looks so different after learning science. For example, trees are made of air, primarily. When they are burned, they go back to air, and in the flaming heat is released the flaming heat of the sun which was bound in to convert the air into tree, and in the ash is the small remnant of the part which did not come from air, that came from the solid earth, instead. These are beautiful things, and the content of science is wonderfully full of them. They are very inspiring, and they can be used to inspire others.

You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. 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 certainty about different things, but I’m 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.

There is no reason that the rules of the game cannot be open for discussion.

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

The purpose of science is not to analyze or describe but to make useful models of the world.

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