Richard Feynman Quotes

283 Sourced Quotes

In any organization there ought to be the possibility of discussion... fence sitting is an art, and it's difficult, and it's important to do, rather than to go headlong in one direction or the other. It's just better to have action, isn't it than to sit on the fence? Not if you're not sure which way to go, it isn't.

Richard Feynman
This universe has been described by many, but it just goes on, with its edge as unknown as the bottom of the bottomless sea of the other ideas — just as mysterious, just as awe-inspiring, and just as incomplete as the poetic pictures that came before.

Richard Feynman
The idea that it [science] takes away mystery or awe or wonder in nature is wrong. It's quite the opposite. It's much more wonderful to know what something's really like than to sit there and just simply, in ignorance, say, "Oooh, isn't it wonderful!"

Richard Feynman
I am giving this winter two courses of lectures to three students, of which one is only moderately prepared, the other less than moderately, and the third lacks both preparation and ability. Such are the onera of a mathematical profession.

Richard Feynman
The vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would recognize that infinity of other truths of which he understands nothing.

Richard Feynman
Perhaps a thing is simple if you can describe it fully in several different ways without immediately knowing that you are describing the same thing.

Richard Feynman
The electron does anything it likes. It goes in any direction at any speed, forward or backward in time, however it likes...

Richard Feynman
I think the problem is not to find the best or most efficient method to proceed to a discovery, but to find any method at all.

Richard Feynman
I want to emphasize that light comes in this form — particles. It is very important to know that light behaves like particles, especially for those of you who have gone to school, where you were probably told something about light behaving like waves. I'm telling you the way it does behave — like particles.

Richard Feynman
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 Feynman
If you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid-not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked-to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Richard Feynman
SAGREDO: My brain already reels. My mind, like a cloud momentarily illuminated by a lightening-flash, is for an instant filled with an unusual light, which now beckons to me and which now suddenly mingles and obscures strange, crude ideas.

Richard Feynman
It is the fact that the electrons cannot all get on top of each other that makes tables and everything else solid.

Richard Feynman
We decided that "trivial" means "proved." So we joked with the mathematicians: "We have a new theorem — that mathematicians can prove only trivial theorems, because every theorem that's proved is trivial."

Richard Feynman
When the scientist tells you he does not know the answer, his is an ignorant man. When he tells you he has a hunch about how it is going to work, he is uncertain about it. When he is pretty sure of how it is going to work, and he tells you, "This is the way it's going to work, I'll bet," he is still in some doubt.

Richard Feynman
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.

Richard Feynman
All science is intelligent inference; excessive literalism is a delusion, not a humble bowing to evidence.

Richard Feynman
With more knowledge comes a deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still. Never concerned that the answer may prove disappointing, with pleasure and confidence we turn over each new stone to find unimagined strangeness leading on to more wonderful questions and mysteries — certainly a grand adventure.

Richard Feynman
When I see equations, I see the letters in colors — I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Ernde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students.

Richard Feynman
There's so much distance between the fundamental rules and the final phenomenon, that it's almost unbelievable that the final variety of phenomenon can come from such a steady operation of such simple rules.

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

Richard Feynman
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 Feynman
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.

Richard Feynman
There are the rushing waves... mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business... trillions apart... yet forming white surf in unison.

Richard Feynman
I'm trying to find out NOT how Nature could be, but how Nature IS.

Richard Feynman
There are theoretical physicists who imagine, deduce, and guess at new laws, but do not experiment; and then there are experimental physicists who experiment, imagine, deduce, and guess.

Richard Feynman
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 Feynman
A great deal more can be known than can be proved.

Richard Feynman
Just as a poet often has license from the rules of grammar and pronunciation, we should like to ask for 'physicists' license from the rules of mathematics in order to express what we wish to say in as simple a manner as possible.

Richard Feynman
The fact that there are rules at all to be checked is a kind of miracle; that it is possible to find a rule, like the inverse square law of gravitation, is some sort of miracle. It is not understood at all, but it leads to the possibility of prediction — that means it tells you what you would expect to happen in an experiment you have not yet done.

Richard Feynman