Quotes by Richard Feynman

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

THE QUESTION IS, OF COURSE, IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO AMALGAMATE EVERYTHING,AND MERELY DISCOVER THAT THIS WORLD REPRESENTS DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ONE THING?

CURIOSITY DEMANDS THAT WE ASK QUESTIONS,THAT WE TRY TO PUT THINGS TOGETHER AND TRY TO UNDERSTAND THIS MULTITUDE OF ASPECTSAS PERHAPS RESULTING FROM THE ACTION OF A RELATIVELY SMALL NUMBER OF ELEMENTALTHINGS AND FORCES ACTING IN AN INFINITE VARIETY OF COMBINATIONS

Nature has a great simplicity and therefore a great beauty

If instead of arranging the atoms in some definite pattern, again and again repeated, on and on, or even forming little lumps of complexity like the odor of violets, we make an arrangement which is always different from place to place, with different kinds of atoms arranged in many ways, continually changing, not repeating, how much more marvelously is it possible that this thing might behave? Is it possible that that thing walking back and forth in front of you, talking to you, is a great glob of these atoms in a very complex arrangement, such that the sheer complexity of it staggers the imagination as to what it can do? When we say we are a pile of atoms, we do not mean we are merely a pile of atoms, because a pile of atoms which is not repeated from one to the other might well have the possibilities which you see before you in the mirror.

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.

(Joan,1941) She wrote me a letter asking,How can I read it?,Its so hard. I told her to start at the beginning and read as far as you can get until youre lost. Then start again at the beginning and keep working through until you can understand the whole book. And thats what she did

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

“We can never be right, we can only prove were wrong.”

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

“Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”

“Odiaría morir dos veces, sería tan aburrido!.”

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

“It doesnt matter how beautiful your theory is ... If it doesnt agree with experiment, its wrong.”

“The main job of theoretical physics is to prove yourself wrong as soon as possible.”

“It doesnt matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesnt matter how smart you are. If it doesnt agree with experiment, its wrong.”

“I would rather have questions that cant be answered than answers that cant be questioned.”