Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
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 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.
I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.
Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. And so it is with science.
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.
Once you start doubting, just like you’re supposed to doubt, you ask me if the science is true. You say no, we don’t know what’s true, we’re trying to find out and everything is possibly wrong.
Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
The easiest person to fool is yourself.
I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.
It is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions.
There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower.
If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.
Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty – some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.
This is not yet a scientific age.