Quotes from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“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 that might be wrong.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I believe that we must attack these things in which we do not believe. Not attack by the method of cutting off the heads of the people, but attack in the sense of discuss. I believe that we should demand that people try in their own minds to obtain for themselves a more consistent picture of their own world; that they not permit themselves the luxury of having their brain cut in four pieces or two pieces even, and on one side they believe this and on the other side they believe that, but never try to compare the two points of view. Because we have learned that, by trying to put the points of view that we have in our head together and comparing one to the other, we make some progress in understanding and in appreciating where we are and what we are. And I believe that science has remained irrelevant because we wait until somebody asks us questions or until we are invited to give a speech on Einstein’s theory to people who don’t understand Newtonian mechanics, but we never are invited to give an attack on faith healing, or on astrology — on what is the scientific view of astrology today.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“Once you start doubting, just like you’re supposed to doubt, you ask me if the science is true. You say no, we don’t know what’s true, we’re trying to find out and everything is possibly wrong.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“The things that mattered were honesty, independence, willingness to admit ignorance.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I think we should teach them [the people] wonders and that the purpose of knowledge is to appreciate wonders even more.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will fully appreciated that the power of governments should be limited; that governments ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that this is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the description of history or of economic theory or of philosophy.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I’m not responsible for what other people think I am able to do; I don’t have to be good because they think I’m going to be good.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I've always been rather very one-sided about the science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it. I didn't have time to learn, and I didn't have much patience for what's called the humanities; even though in the university there were humanities that you had to take, I tried my best to avoid somehow to learn anything and to work on it. It's only afterwards, when I've gotten older and more relaxed that I've spread out a little bit — I've learned to draw, and I read a little bit, but I'm really still a very one-sided person and don't know a great deal. I have a limited intelligence and I've used it in a particular direction.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“لا ينبغي أن نخشى من الشكّ بل يجب أن نرحّب به ونناقشه”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I won’t have anything to do with the Nobel Prize . . . it’s a pain in the . . . (LAUGHS). I don’t like honors.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves . . . mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business . . . trillions apart . . . yet forming white surf in unison. Ages on ages . . . before any eyes could see . . . year after year . . . thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? . . . on a dead planet, with no life to entertain. Never at rest . . . tortured by energy . . . wasted prodigiously by the sun . . . poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves . . . and a new dance starts. Growing in size and complexity . . . living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein . . . dancing a pattern ever more intricate. Out of the cradle onto the dry land . . . here it is standing . . . atoms with consciousness . . . matter with curiosity. Stands at the sea . . . wonders at wondering . . . I . . . a universe”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I believe, therefore, that although it is not the case today, that there may some day come a time, I should hope, when it will be fully appreciated that the power of government should be limited; that governments ought not to be empowered to decide the validity of scientific theories, that that is a ridiculous thing for them to try to do; that they are not to decide the various descriptions of history or of economic theory or of philosophy. Only in this way can the real possibilities of the future human race be ultimately developed.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“You see, one thing is, 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.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I don’t believe in honors, it bothers me, honors bother, honors is epaulettes, honors is uniforms. My papa brought me up this way. I can’t stand it, it hurts me.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“it is our capacity to doubt that will determine the future of civilization.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“...I realized a new principle, which was that I'm not responsible for what other people think I am able to do; I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“The first is the matter of judging evidence–well, the first thing really is, before you begin you must not know the answer. So you begin by being uncertain as to what the answer is. This is very, very important, so important that I would like to delay that aspect, and talk about that still further along in my speech. The question of doubt and uncertainty is what is necessary to begin; for if you already know the answer there is no need to gather any evidence about it. Well,”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“There are very remarkable mysteries about the fact that we’re able to do so many more things than apparently animals can do, and other questions like that, but those are mysteries I want to investigate without knowing the answer to them, and so altogether I can’t believe theses special stories that have been made up about our relationship to the universe at large because they seem to be too simple, too connected, too local, too provincial.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“Wir müssen unbedingt Raum für Zweifel lassen, sonst gibt es keinen Fortschritt, kein Dazulernen. Man kann nichts Neues herausfinden, wenn man nicht vorher eine Frage stellt. Und um zu fragen, bedarf es des Zweifelns.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“but if you believe in the truth of the healing, then you are responsible to investigate”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“You just have to know what the right laws are under the right circumstances, and design the device with the correct laws. You cannot expect old designs to work in new circumstances. But new designs can work in new circumstances...”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“...it is a part of the adventure of science to try to find a limitation in all directions and to stretch the human imagination as far as possible everywhere. Although at every stage it has looked as if such an activity was absurd and useless, it often turns out at least not to be useless.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“He detested hierarchy and enjoyed the friendship of people in all walks of life. He was, like Shakespeare, an actor with a talent for comedy.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

“I won’t have anything to do with the Nobel Prize . . . it’s a pain in the . . . (LAUGHS).”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

About the author

Popular quotes

“This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Stargirl

“The rockets set the bony meadows afire, turned rock to lava, turned wood to charcoal, transmuted water to steam, made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion, all about. The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke.”
― Ray Bradbury, quote from The Martian Chronicles

“The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.”
― Lao Tzu, quote from Tao Te Ching

“Who really can face the future? All you can do is project from the past, even when the past shows that such projections are often wrong. And who really can forget the past? What else is there to know?”
― Robert M. Pirsig, quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“Somewhere to our north ran the Ebola River, a tributary of a tributary of the Congo River, but a name that is associated with a horrific medical”
― Tim Butcher, quote from Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.