Famous Quotes & Sayings

Richard P. Feynman

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the fact, the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain … In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

Richard P. Feynman

Unless a thing can be defined by measurement, it has no place in a theory. And since an accurate value of the momentum of a localized particle cannot be defined by measurement it therefore has no place in the theory.

Richard P. Feynman

It is odd, but on the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

Richard P. Feynman

Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.

Richard P. Feynman

Scientists are explorers. Philosophers are tourists.

Richard P. Feynman

The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. ... If you will simply admit that maybe [Nature] does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Richard P. Feynman

If you thought that science was certain - well, that is just an error on your part.

Richard Dawkins

Cheetah genes cooperate with cheetah genes but not with camel genes, and vice versa. This is not because cheetah genes, even in the most poetic sense, see any virtue in the preservation of the cheetah species. They are not working to save the cheetah from extinction like some molecular World Wildlife Fund.

Richard Whately

To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.

William James

The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity.

Wayne Dyer

You're here for a reason and it's not to hoard a lot of physical stuff.

Joseph B. Wirthlin

If we only look around us, there are a thousand reasons for us not to be happy, and it is simplicity itself to blame our unhappiness on the things we lack in life. It doesn’t take any talent at all to find them. The problem is, the more we focus on the things we don’t have, the more unhappy and more resentful we become.

Nelson Goodman

For if as scientists we seek simplicity, then obviously we try the simplest surviving theory first, and retreat from it only when it proves false. Not this course, but any other, requires explanation. If you want to go somewhere quickly, and several alternate routes are equally likely to be open, no one asks why you take the shortest. The simplest theory is to be chosen not because it is the most likely to be true but because it is scientifically the most rewarding among equally likely alternatives. We aim at simplicity and hope for truth.

Linda McCartney

I don't need a lot of money. Simplicity is the answer for me.

Leo Tolstoy

There is no genius where there is not simplicity.

Lee Smolin

Simplicity and beauty are the signs not of truth but of a well-constructed approximate model of a limited domain of phenomena.

Joshua Reynolds

Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.

Paul Desmond

The qualities in music which I considered most important - and still do - were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity.

Ian Mckellen

There are still times in my life where I pull back from being totally honest, and I can't imagine a single straight person who would understand that.

Russell Simmons

Whatever they can imagine for themselves they can accomplish.

John Schuerholz

I think it's obvious. If he doesn't do what he's doing for us, I can only imagine where we'd be. I can't imagine a player on a winning team being more valuable to his team than he's been.

William Rhodes

I'd imagine over time you'll see more moves,

Richard M. Nixon

The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time — it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine.

Roger Waters

I feel I have the potential to reach an audience beyond anything I can imagine.

Romesh Gunesekera

People who read fiction are different from other people because they are people who are interested in an imagined world.

Jack McGuire

Our logistics worked well generally, up until 2005. We couldn't imagine how something that big and complicated could happen. It took a process that worked OK and stretched it, and we got to see all the cracks.

Jon Gruden

I really didn't imagine this scenario. But usually those are the scenarios that come to be.