Richard Feynman |
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.
You only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that`s the end of you.
There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
Nobody understands the world they`re in, but some people are better off at it than others.
We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
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.
I think it`s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.
Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad - but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.
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 first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature.