Top 100 Richard P. Feynman Quotes

#1. Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #319
#2. The drawing teacher has this problem of communicating how to draw by osmosis and not by instruction, while the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #4993
#3. Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #13047
#4. But the real glory of science is that we can find a way of thinking such that the law is evident.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #35836
#5. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #44887
#6. You do not know anything until you have practiced.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #52959
#7. The internal machinery of life, the chemistry of the parts, is something beautiful. And it turns out that all life is interconnected with all other life.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #75666
#8. God was invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #77718
#9. See that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #104828
#10. Science is a process for learning about nature in which competing ideas about how the world works are measured against observations.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #110962
#11. I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #114003
#12. I don't think that the laws can be considered to be like God because they have been figured out.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #184016
#13. The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #215988
#14. Progress in science comes when experiments contradict theory.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #218634
#15. Everybody who reasons carefully about anything is making a contribution ... and if you abstract it away and send it to the Department of Mathematics they put it in books.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #232541
#16. A great deal more is known than has been proved.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #269161
#17. People may come along and argue philosophically that they like one better than another; but we have learned from much experience that all philosophical intuitions about what nature is going to do fail.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #291725
#18. As usual, nature's imagination far surpasses our own, as we have seen from the other theories which are subtle and deep.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #316182
#19. If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #316817
#20. It is simple, therefore it is beautiful

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #321385
#21. Science is a way for us to not fool ourselves.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #337319
#22. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #350567
#23. To develop working ideas efficiently, I try to fail as fast as I can.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #374769
#24. Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #403852
#25. To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #404491
#26. While I am describing to you how Nature works, you won't understand why Nature works that way. But you see, nobody understands that.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #415291
#27. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #446041
#28. We're always, by the way, in fundamental physics, always trying to investigate those things in which we don't understand the conclusions. After we've checked them enough, we're okay.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #452826
#29. In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #491489
#30. Phenomena complex-laws simple ... Know what to leave out.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #496489
#31. I think we can safely assume that no one understands quantum mechanics.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #503382
#32. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #533401
#33. When I was a young man, Dirac was my hero. He made a breakthrough, a new method of doing physics. He had the courage to simply guess at the form of an equation, the equation we now call the Dirac equation, and to try to interpret it afterwards.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #533731
#34. Perhaps one day we will have machines that can cope with approximate task descriptions, but in the meantime, we have to be very prissy about how we tell computers to do things.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #591508
#35. There is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death. This suggests to me that it is not at all inevitable and that it is only a matter of time before biologists discover what it is that is causing us the trouble.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #597194
#36. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #617695
#37. The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines ... They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #625579
#38. I practiced drawing all the time and became very interested in it. If I was at a meeting that wasn't getting anywhere - like the one where Carl Rogers came to Caltech to discuss with us whether Caltech should develop a psychology department - I would draw the other people.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #635678
#39. Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #654044
#40. When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #680484
#41. But logic is not all, one needs one's heart to follow an idea.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #694070
#42. We are not to tell nature what she's gotta be. She's always got better imagination than we have.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #725771
#43. The same equations have the same solutions

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #761986
#44. We've learned from experience that the truth will come out.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #769938
#45. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #785570
#46. I've always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #803097
#47. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #823670
#48. It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #856251
#49. I thought one should have the attitude of 'What do you care what other people think!'

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #859059
#50. Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #862176
#51. Nature ... cannot be fooled!

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #926058
#52. The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #946394
#53. What I can't create I don't understand

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #981405
#54. I want to marry Arline because I love her - which means I want to take care of her. That is all there is to it. I want to take care of her. I am anxious for the responsibilities and uncertainties of taking care of the girl I love.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1011659
#55. Once I get on a puzzle, I can't get off.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1024398
#56. If you can't explain something to a first year student, then you haven't really understood .

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1031631
#57. If you can find any other view of the world which agrees over the entire range where things have already been observed, but disagrees somewhere else, you have made a great discovery.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1051793
#58. It's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about we can discuss.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1068842
#59. This is not yet a scientific age.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1078547
#60. Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1089103
#61. Once we were driving in the midwest and we pulled into a McDonald's. Someone came up to me and asked me why I have Feynman diagrams all over my van. I replied, "Because I am Feynman!" The young man went, "Ahhhhh!"

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1115578
#62. Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1136871
#63. The most important thing I found out from [my father] is that if you asked any question and pursued it deeply enough, then at the end there was a glorious discovery of a general and beautiful kind.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1153041
#64. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1153544
#65. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1155404
#66. Each piece, or part, of the whole of nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1223787
#67. You can always recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1235792
#68. 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!

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1235804
#69. A scientist is never certain ... We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1243201
#70. The Quantum Universe has a quotation from me in every chapter - but it's a damn good book anyway.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1268819
#71. Science is uncertain.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1289474
#72. We have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1320578
#73. People often think I'm a faker, but I'm usually honest, in a certain way - in such a way that often nobody believes me!

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1323051
#74. The scale of light can be described by numbers called the frequency and as the numbers get higher, the light goes from red to blue to ultraviolet. We can't see ultraviolet light, but it can affect photographic plates. It's still light only the number is different.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1327181
#75. The present situation in physics is as if we know chess, but we don't know one or two rules.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1348078
#76. It is a curious historical fact that modern quantum mechanics began with two quite different mathematical formulations: the differential equation of Schroedinger and the matrix algebra of Heisenberg. The two apparently dissimilar approaches were proved to be mathematically equivalent.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1352028
#77. 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?"

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1402313
#78. I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1410482
#79. The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad!

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1430117
#80. Nature isn't classical, dammit, and if you want to make a simulation of nature, you'd better make it quantum mechanical, and by golly it's a wonderful problem, because it doesn't look so easy.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1473466
#81. Because the theory of quantum mechanics could explain all of chemistry and the various properties of substances, it was a tremendous success. But still there was the problem of the interaction of light and matter.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1493211
#82. There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1497768
#83. If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1500069
#84. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1520116
#85. Physics has a history of synthesizing many phenomena into a few theories.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1568657
#86. What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one the way we want them?

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1628895
#87. The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life?

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1632804
#88. We can deduce, often, from one part of physics like the law of gravitation, a principle which turns out to be much more valid than the derivation.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1639390
#89. 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.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1658081
#90. Don't worry about anything ... Go out and have a good time.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1689786
#91. Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1693263
#92. All we know so far is what doesn't work.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1720201
#93. I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1725479
#94. The easiest person to fool is yourself.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1732972
#95. We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1764932
#96. If science is to progress, what we need is the ability to experiment, honesty in reporting results - the results must be reported without somebody saying what they would like the results to have been - and finally - an important thing - the intelligence to interpret the results.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1767382
#97. I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1780843
#98. Working out another system to replace Newton's laws took a long time because phenomena at the atomic level were quite strange. One had to lose one's common sense in order to perceive what was happening at the atomic level.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1783689
#99. Energy is a very subtle concept. It is very, very difficult to get right.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1867755
#100. Few people realize the number of things that are possible.

Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman Quotes #1868213

Famous Authors

Popular Topics

Scroll to Top