All the time you’re saying to yourself, ‘I could do that, but I won’t,’ — which is just another way of saying that you can’t.
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!
I couldn’t claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys–but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
But there is nothing in biology yet found that indicates the inevitability of death.
Science is what we have learned about how to keep from fooling ourselves.
You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts.
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
Religion is a culture of faith science is a culture of doubt.
We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.
If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part.
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.
I have no responsibility to live up to what others expect of me. That’s their mistake, not my failing.
[Quantum mechanics] describes nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And yet it fully agrees with experiment. So I hope you can accept nature as She is – absurd.
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.
Science is a long history of learning how not to fool ourselves.
If one cannot see gravitation acting here, he has no soul.
I think nature’s imagination Is so much greater than man’s, she’s never going to let us relax
Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.
I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
…the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.
I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.
Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.
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.
I learned from her that every woman is worriedabout her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.
You can’t say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction.
I… a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.
Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?
The laws of physics could be like an onion, with new laws becoming operational as we probe new scales. We simply don’t know!
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.
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?
Nature has a great simplicity and therefore a great beauty
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.