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

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

Richard Whately

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

William S. Burroughs

They tend to be suspicious, bristly, paranoid-type people with huge egos they push around like some elephantiasis victim with his distended testicles in a wheelbarrow terrified no doubt that some skulking ingrate of a clone student will sneak into his very brain and steal his genius work.

Woody Allen

Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things.

Jason Portz

He's always a person that people are trying to pitch around. He's his own worst enemy at times. When he can focus on doing the little things in the game, he's a terrific player. He's been very solid for us and his leadership has been tremendous.

William Shenstone

The making presents to a lady one addresses is like throwing armor into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it.

William Saroyan

No enemy is so annoying as one who was a friend, or still is a friend,and there are many more of these than one would suspect.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Industry is the enemy of melancholy

Samuel Johnson

The relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

Samuel Richardson

Quantity in diet is more to be regarded than quality. A full meal is a great enemy both to study and industry.

William Cowper

Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else Like kindred drops been mingled into one.

Voltaire

Now is not the time for making new enemies.

Voltaire

This is no time to be making new enemies.

Russell Hoban

More and more I'm aware that the permutations are not unlimited.

Gustave Flaubert

Tout ce qu'on invente est vrai, soi-en sure. La poesie est une chose aussi precise que la geometrie.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Mathematics is concerned only with the enumeration and comparison of relations.

Max Black

... a result once generally accepted by mathematicians is seldom retracted, and then only with great pangs. The Nature of Mathematics

Nicolaus Copernicus

Mathemata mathematicis scribuntur Mathematics is written for mathematicians De Revolutionibus

Georg Cantor

A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One.

Bill Gates

In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can't you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that's different from a California textbook that's different from a Massachusetts textbook. That's very expensive.