Richard Feynman quotes - page 3

It is impossible, by the way, when picking one example of anything, to avoid picking one which is atypical in some sense. (Richard Feynman)
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. View quote
Richard Feynman
It requires a much higher degree of imagination to understand the electromagnetic field than to understand invisible angels. ... I speak of the E and B fields and wave my arms and you may imagine that I can see them ... [but] I cannot really make a picture that is even nearly like the true waves. View quote
Richard Feynman
This is the key of modern science and is the beginning of the true understanding of nature. This idea. That to look at the things, to record the details, and to hope that in the information thus obtained, may lie a clue to one or another of a possible theoretical interpretation. View quote
Richard Feynman
Physics is to mathematics what sex is to masturbation. View quote
Richard Feynman
The same equations have the same solutions. View quote
Richard Feynman
So, ultimately, in order to understand nature it may be necessary to have a deeper understanding of mathematical relationships. But the real reason is that the subject is enjoyable, and although we humans cut nature up in different ways, and we have different courses in different departments, such compartmentalization is really artificial, and we should take our intellectual pleasures where we find them. View quote
Richard Feynman
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. View quote
Richard Feynman
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. View quote
Richard Feynman
A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven. View quote
Richard Feynman
...study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible. (Richard Feynman)
Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get "down the drain", into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. View quote
Richard Feynman
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. View quote
Richard Feynman
Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose! View quote
Richard Feynman
The philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds. View quote
Richard Feynman
[John] von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility! View quote
Richard Feynman
Our imagination is stretched to the utmost, not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things which are there. View quote
Richard Feynman
Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science - for to fill your heart with love is enough! View quote
Richard Feynman
Whenever you see a sweeping statement that a tremendous amount can come from a very small number of assumptions, you always find that it is false. There are usually a large number of implied assumptions that are far from obvious if you think about them sufficiently carefully. View quote
Richard Feynman
The electron is a theory we use; it is so useful in understanding the way nature works that we can almost call it real. View quote
Richard Feynman
The theoretical broadening which comes from having many humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general dopiness of the people who study these things. (Richard Feynman)
Jiry, don't worry about anything. Go out and have a good time. View quote
Richard Feynman
Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself. View quote
Richard Feynman
On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics. View quote
Richard Feynman
The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way someday. View quote
Richard Feynman