Richard P. Feynman Quotes

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.

Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being.

The wise skeptic does not teach doubt but how] to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting.

Scientific research can reduce superstition by encouraging people to think and view things in terms of cause and effect.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt and to be ignorant.

Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.

Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.

Subjectivism is not an absolute principle; it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sound methodology.

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.

True science teaches, above all, to doubt

It would strike me as ridiculous to want to doubt the existence of Napoleon; but if someone doubted the existence of the earth 150years ago, perhaps I should be more willing to listen, for now he is doubting our whole system of evidence.

When did ignorance become a point of view?

I don't believe anything till I have seen the proof. For anything without proof, I think we should believe the theory that gives us peace. It doesn't matter whether the theory is true or not.

I would proclaim that the vast majority of what [say, Scientific American] is true-yet my ability to defend such a claim is weaker than I would like. And most likely the readers, authors, and editors of that magazine would be equally hard pressed to come up with cogent, non-technical arguments convincing a skeptic of this point, especially if pitted against a clever lawyer arguing the contrary. How come Truth is such a slippery beast?

The doubter is a true man of science: he doubts only himself and his interpretations, but he believes in science.

Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some abstract way what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it.

Another of the qualities of science is that it teaches the value of rational thought, as well as the importance of freedom of thought; the positive results that come from doubting that all the lessons are true... Learn from science that you must doubt the experts. As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Skepticism is not a position; skepticism is an approach to claims, in the same way that science is not a subject but a method.

When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.

On the road halfway between faith and criticism stands the inn of reason. Reason is faith in what can be understood without faith, but it's still a faith, since to understand presupposes that there's something understandable.

I've gone through most of my life not believing anything. Either I know or I don't know, or I think.

Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has good reason to believe.

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence.

I do not feign hypotheses.