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Richard Feynman

230 quotes

“And this is medicine?”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"It was a brilliant idea: 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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One time I was in the men's room of the bar and there was a guy at the urinal. He was kind of drunk, and said to me in a mean-sounding voice, "I don't like your face. I think I'll push it in."I was scared green. I replied in an equally mean voice, "Get out of my way, or I'll pee right through ya!”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Finally, I said that I couldn’t see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have to understand the world, you see.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. 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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There's a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you!”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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!”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics. It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance — gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood — so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (Quoted in Handbook of Economic Growth (2005) by Philippe Aghion and Steven N. Durlauf.)
“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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we are to replace standard numerical probability usage with engineering judgment, why do we find such an enormous disparity between the management estimate and the judgment of the engineers? It would appear that, for whatever purpose, be it for internal or external consumption, the management of NASA exaggerates the reliability of its product, to the point of fantasy.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was no way, without full understanding, that one could have confidence that conditions the next time might not produce erosion three times more severe than the time before. Nevertheless, officials fooled themselves into thinking they had such understanding and confidence, in spite of the peculiar variations from case to case. A mathematical model was made to calculate erosion. This was a model based not on physical understanding but on empirical curve fitting.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. ... I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My mother ... had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doubting the great Descartes ... was a reaction I learned from my father: 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 Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (From a 1963 letter to his wife Gweneth, written while attending a gravity conference in Communist-era Warsaw.)
“The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't like honors. ... I've already got the prize: the prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 82, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video
“People say to me, "Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics?" No, I'm not. I'm just looking to find out more about the world and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it; that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out it's like an onion with millions of layers and we're just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then that's the way it is!... And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldn't pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it... My interest in science is to simply find out more about the world.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1981 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 251-252, from interview in "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" (1981): video
“Jiry, don't worry about anything. Go out and have a good time.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 252, last words to his artist friend Jirayr Zorthian, as recalled by Zorthian in "No Ordinary Genius" (1993): video
“Some people say, "How can you live without knowing?" I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way someday.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first one has to do with whether a man knows what he is talking about, whether what he says has some basis or not. And my trick that I use is very easy. If you ask him intelligent questions — that is, penetrating, interested, honest, frank, direct questions on the subject, and no trick questions — then he quickly gets stuck. It is like a child asking naive questions. If you ask naive but relevant questions, then almost immediately the person doesn't know the answer, if he is an honest man.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyway, I have to argue about flying saucers on the beach with people, you know. And I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And that's true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether it's possible or not but whether it's going on or not.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the professors of English will complain to me that the students who come to the universities, after all those years of study, still cannot spell "friend," I say to them that something's the matter with the way you spell friend.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. 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.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
“...I don't believe in the idea that there are a few peculiar people capable of understanding math and the rest of the world is normal. Math is a human discovery, and it's no more complicated than humans can understand. I had a calculus book once that said, "What one fool can do, another fool can." What we've been able to work out about nature may look abstract and threatening to someone who hasn't studied it, but it was fools who did it, and in the next generation, all the fools will understand it. There's a tendency to pomposity in all this, to make it all deep and profound...”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) or from the book p. 194.
“...In that same period there was Newton, there was Harvey studying the circulation of the blood, there were people with methods of analysis by which progress was being made! You can take every one of Spinoza's propositions and take the contrary propositions and look at the world--and you can't tell which is right. Sure, people were awed because he had the courage to take on these great questions, but it doesn't do any good to have the courage if you can't get anywhere with the question...”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) or from the book p. 195.
“I don't know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From Omni interview, "The Smartest Man in the World" (1979) p. 203
“[S]tudy hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Ms. J. M. Szabados of Victoria, Australia (30 November 1965)
“Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From a letter to Ashok Arora of Uttar Pradesh, India, dated 4 January 1967
“In the hands of a Feynman the [variational] technique works like a Latin charm; with ordinary mortals the result is a mixed bag.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Forman S. Acton, Numerical Methods that Work (1970) p. 252
“Richard Feynman became so exasperated [at the National Academy of Sciences] that he resigned his membership, saying that he saw no point in belonging to an organization that spent most of its time deciding who to let in.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gregory Benford, "A Scientist's Notebook: Scientist Heroes" in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (April 1996)
“This verse is for Richard Feynman. He was not a simple simon.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jeff Coffin (of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones) in the song "Ah shu Dekio", during a live show recorded and released on DVD as Live at the Quick (2000): video
“Richard Feynman has related that at a meeting of the American Physical Society, likely sometime in 1956, he was chatting with Onsager when a wild-eyed young man came up to them and said that he had solved the problem of superconductivity. ... As Feyman relates, he could not understand what the young man was saying and concluded that the fellow was probably crazy. ... Feynman believed that the young man was me. I am not sure whether or not this meeting actually occurred, but it might have.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Feynman uses Dirac's notation to describe the quantum mechanics of stimulated emission. ... He applies that physics to several physical systems, including dye molecules. ... In this regard, Feynman could have predicted the existence of the tunable laser. Furthermore, Feynman made accessible Dirac's quantum notation via his thought experiments on two-slit interference with electrons.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A truer description would have said that Feynman was all genius and all buffoon. The deep thinking and the joyful clowning were not separate parts of a split personality. He did not do his thinking on Monday and his clowning on Tuesday. He was thinking and clowning simultaneously.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freeman Dyson, 1988 remark, as published in From Eros to Gaia (1992), p. 314
“Feynman has no interest in scholastic arguments. He is concerned only with human problems. He has a deep respect for religion, because he sees it as helping people to behave well toward one another and to be brave in facing tragedy. He respects religion as an important part of human nature. He does not himself believe in God, but he has no wish to destroy other people's belief.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006) "Is God in the Lab?
“He does not write about professional scientists or professional scientists or professional religious thinkers. He writes about students who come to college from homes where religious belief is strong, and then find that exposure to modern science is calling their beliefs into question. ...He does not claim to have a cure for their anguish. He sees a genuine conflict between the old-fashioned family religion that commands the students to believe without question, and the ethic of science that commands them to question everything.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006) "Is God in the Lab?" referring to Feynman's Danz Lectures, University of Washington (1963)
“Just as science can live without certainty, religion can live without dogma, and the two can live together without conflict. This is the solution that Feynman recommends to his students.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006) "Is God in the Lab?
“If that's the world's smartest man, God help us.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Richard's mother, Lucille Feynman, after Omni magazine named him the world's smartest man (1979); quoted in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992) by James Gleick, p. 397
“He surrounded himself with a cloud of myth, and he spent a great deal of time and energy generating anecdotes about himself. ... Many of the anecdotes arose, of course, through the stories Richard told, of which he generally was the hero, and in which he had to come out, if possible, looking smarter than anyone else.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Murray Gell-Mann, "Dick Feynman — The Guy in the Office Down the Hall," Physics Today, volume 42, number 2, February 1989, p. 50-54, at p. 50
“A [physics student] ... discovers unpublished lecture notes by Richard Feynman, circulating samizdat style. He asks Gell-Mann about them. Gell-Mann says no, Dick's methods are not the same as the methods used here. The student asks, well, what are Feynman's methods? Gell-Mann leans coyly against the blackboard and says, Dick's method is this. You write down the problem. You think very hard. (He shuts his eyes and presses his knuckles parodically to his forehead.) Then you write down the answer.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from an interview with Sidney Coleman, reported by James Gleick in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992), p. 315
“Architect of quantum theories, brash young group leader on the atomic bomb project, inventor of the ubiquitous Feynman diagram, ebullient bongo player and storyteller, Richard Phillips Feynman was the most brilliant, iconoclastic, and influential physicist of modern times. He took the half-made conceptions of waves and particles in the 1940s and shaped them into tools that ordinary physicists could use and understand. He had a lightning ability to see into the heart of the problems nature posed.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: James Gleick in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992), p. 8
“Shortly before midnight on February 15, 1988, his body gasped for air that the oxygen tube could not provide, and his space in the world closed. An imprint remained: what he knew, how he knew.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: James Gleick in Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992), p. 438