"Physics is like S*x."- Richard P. Feynman 100 Quotes

From Left to Right: Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrass Tyson

Richard Phillips Feynman was born on 11 May 1918. He was an American theoretical physicist, and he was known for his work in the path integral formulation of Quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as his work in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. Richard P. Feynman received the Nobel prize in physics in 1965, for contributions to the developments of quantum electrodynamics, shared with Julian Schwinger and Shinichiro Tomonaga.

"Physics is like s*x. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."

“I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

 

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

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

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

“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 and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know the answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.” 

“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.”

“Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.”

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,' — which is just another way of saying that you can't.”

“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”

“Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation.”

“There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.”

“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.”

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

 

“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!”

 “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.”

“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.”

“What I cannot create, I do not understand.”

 “To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.

And so it is with science.” 

 

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

“I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!”

 “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.”

 

“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”

“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.”

 

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

 

“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!”

“I think nature's imagination Is so much greater than man's, she's never going to let us relax.”

 

“Mathematics is a language plus reasoning; it is like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning.”

“Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.”

 

“I learned from her that every woman is worried
            about her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.”

 

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

“Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.”

 

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

“Learn what the rest of the world is like. The variety is worthwhile.”

“I always do that, get into something and see how far I can go.”

“[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.”

“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.” 

“Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science — for to fill your heart with love is enough. ”

“Nature has a great simplicity and therefore a great beauty.”

 

“I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.”

“Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.”

“We are lucky to live in an age in which we are still making discoveries. ”

“You see, I get so much fun out of thinking that I don’t want to destroy this pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick.”

“If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.”

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”

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

“I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.”

“But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.”

“That’s the trouble with not being in your own field: You don’t take it seriously.”

“The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry... The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it.”

“I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me.”

 “You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.”

“Thank you very Much, I enjoyed myself.”

“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.”

“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!”

“innovation is a very difficult thing in the real world.”

“Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.”

“Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?”

 “You can’t say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.”

“Why nature is mathematical is, again, a mystery.”

“For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy.”

“The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.... No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.”

“Everything is made of atoms.”

“…the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.”

“I have to keep going to find out ultimately what is the matter with it in the end.”

“There are thousands of years in the past, and there is an unknown amount of time in the future. There are all kinds of opportunities, and there are all kinds of dangers.”

“I was an ordinary person who studied hard. There are no miracle people. It happens they get interested in this thing and they learn all this stuff, but they’re just people.”

“How much do you value life?” “Sixty-four.”

“Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion.”

“A philosopher once said, "It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results." Well, they don't!”

“Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about.”

“The things that mattered were honesty, independence, willingness to admit ignorance.”

“That was a very good way to get educated, working on the senior problems and learning how to pronounce things.”

“A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven.”

“psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch-doctoring.”

“The exception proves that the rule is wrong.” That is the principle of science. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.”

“Never confuse education with intelligence, you can have a PhD and still be an idiot.”

“You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying "one, two, three, four, five protons," they say, "hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron.”

“I won’t have anything to do with the Nobel Prize . . . it’s a pain in the . . . (LAUGHS). I don’t like honors.”

“What looks still to our crude eyes is a wild and dynamic dance.”

“anything can happen, in spite of what you’re pretty sure should happen.”