Top 15 Richard Feynman Quotes

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.

"When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles.

The other students in the class interrupt me: "We *know* all that!"

"Oh," I say, "you *do*? Then no *wonder* I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes."

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race.

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

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

Pompous fools drive me up the wall. Ordinary fools are alright; you can talk to them and try to help them out. But pompous fools – guys who are fools and 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!

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

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!