140 quotes
Light is something like raindrops — each little lump of light is called a photon — and if the light is all one color, all the "raindrops" are the same.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
What I cannot create, I do not understand. ...Know how to solve every problem that has been solved.
People are always asking for the latest developments in the unification of this theory with that theory, and they don't give us a chance to tell them anything about what we know pretty well. They always want to know the things we don't know.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty.
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity — and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)
If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it!
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)
If we have confidence in a law, then if something appears to be wrong it can suggest to us another phenomenon.
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
The real problem in speech is not precise language. The problem is clear language.
Every instrument that has been designed to be sensitive enough to detect weak light has always ended up discovering that the same thing: light is made of particles.
QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985)
Perhaps you will not only have some appreciation of this culture; it is even possible that you may want to join in the greatest adventure that the human mind has ever begun.
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)
This conference was worse than a Rorschach test: There's a meaningless inkblot, and the others ask you what you think you see, but when you tell them, they start arguing with you!
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)
I have a limited intelligence and I've used it in a particular direction.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)
It is really quite impossible to say anything with absolute precision, unless that thing is so abstracted from the real world as to not represent any real thing.
The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way someday.
The Meaning of It All (1999)
God was always invented to explain mystery. God is always invented to explain those things that you do not understand.
interview published in Superstrings: A Theory of Everything? (1988)
Physics is to mathematics what sex is to masturbation.
For those who want some proof that physicists are human, the proof is in the idiocy of all the different units which they use for measuring energy.
The Character of Physical Law (1965)
What I cannot create, I do not understand.
How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time?