Top 300 Richard P. Feynman Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

— Richard P. Feynman

2. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

— Richard P. Feynman

3. “What I cannot create, I do not understand.”

— Richard P. Feynman

4. “I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.”

— Richard P. Feynman

5. “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

— Richard P. Feynman

6. “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 P. Feynman

7. “Teach principles not formulas.”

— Richard P. Feynman

8. “Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.”

— Richard P. Feynman

9. “I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

— Richard P. Feynman

10. “To not know math is a severe limitation to understanding the world.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Featured in: Math Quotes, Understanding Quotes

11. “Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.”

— Richard P. Feynman

12. “Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”

— Richard P. Feynman

13. “The only way to deep happiness is to do something you love to the best of your ability.”

— Richard P. Feynman

14. “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.”

— Richard P. Feynman

15. “I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder.”

— Richard P. Feynman

16. “I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”

— Richard P. Feynman

17. “Physics isn’t the most important thing. Love is.”

— Richard P. Feynman

18. “If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.”

— Richard P. Feynman

19. “Never confuse education with intelligence, you can have a PhD and still be an idiot.”

— Richard P. Feynman

20. “Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Featured in: Commitment Quotes

21. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.”

— Richard P. Feynman

22. “We need to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed. It’s OK to say, “I don’t know.””

— Richard P. Feynman

23. “Nature has a great simplicity and therefore a great beauty.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Featured in: Simplicity Quotes

24. “I love only nature, and I hate mathematicians.”

— Richard P. Feynman

25. “There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Featured in: Doubt Quotes

26. “Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.”

— Richard P. Feynman

27. “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”

— Richard P. Feynman

28. “I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.”

— Richard P. Feynman

29. “Mathematics is a language plus reasoning; it is like a language plus logic. Mathematics is a tool for reasoning.”

— Richard P. Feynman

30. “I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.”

— Richard P. Feynman

31. “If all of mathematics disappeared, physics would be set back by exactly one week.”

— Richard P. Feynman

32. “I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics.”

— Richard P. Feynman

33. “People who wish to analyze nature without using mathematics must settle for a reduced understanding.”

— Richard P. Feynman

34. “The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”

— Richard P. Feynman

35. “Everything we know is only some kind of approximation, because we know that we do not know all the laws yet. Therefore, things must be learned only to be unlearned again or, more likely, to be corrected.”

— Richard P. Feynman

36. “The world is a dynamic mess of jiggling things.”

— Richard P. Feynman

37. “The exception tests the rule.”

— Richard P. Feynman

38. “Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.”

— Richard P. Feynman

39. “Experiment is the sole judge of the validity of any idea.”

— Richard P. Feynman

Featured in: Judging Quotes

40. “Tell your son to stop trying to fill your head with science – for to fill your heart with love is enough.”

— Richard P. Feynman

41. “Outside of their particular area of expertise scientists are just as dumb as the next person.”

— Richard P. Feynman

42. “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 P. Feynman

43. “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!”

— Richard P. Feynman

44. “There’s plenty of room at the bottom.”

— Richard P. Feynman

45. “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.”

— Richard P. Feynman

46. “There is enough energy in a single cubic meter of space to boil all the oceans in the world.”

— Richard P. Feynman

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

— Richard P. Feynman

48. “You see, the chemists have a complicated way of counting: instead of saying “one, two, three, four, five protons”, they say, “hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron.””

— Richard P. Feynman

49. “My rule is, when you are unhappy, think about it. But when you’re happy, don’t. Why spoil it? You’re probably happy for some ridiculous reason and you’d just spoil it to know it.”

— Richard P. Feynman

50. “It’s amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time.”

— Richard P. Feynman