What I would like to do now... is to... try to tell you what actually — Richard Feynman

"We always have had ... a great deal of difficulty in understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because Im an old enough man that I havent got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it. And therefore, some of the younger students ... you know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that theres no real problem. It has not yet become obvious to me that theres no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect theres no real problem, but Im not sure theres no real problem."

"I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves mountains of molecules each stupidly minding its own business trillions apart yet forming white surf in unison.Ages on ages before any eyes could see year after year thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what? On a dead planet with no life to entertain.Never at rest tortured by energy wasted prodigiously by the sun poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar. Deep in the sea all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves and a new dance starts.Growing in size and complexity living things masses of atoms DNA, protein dancing a pattern ever more intricate.Out of the cradle onto dry land here it is standing: atoms with consciousness; matter with curiosity.Stands at the sea, wonders at wondering: I a universe of atoms an atom in the universe."

"The physicist needs a facility in looking at problems from several points of view. The exact analysis of real physical problems is usually quite complicated, and any particular physical situation may be too complicated to analyze directly by solving the differential equation. But one can still get a very good idea of the behavior of a system if one has some feel for the character of the solution in different circumstances. Ideas such as the field lines, capacitance, resistance, and inductance are, for such purposes, very useful. ... On the other hand, none of the heuristic models, such as field lines, is really adequate and accurate for all situations. There is only one precise way of presenting the laws, and that is by means of differential equations. They have the advantage of being fundamental and, so far as we know, precise. If you have learned the differential equations you can always go back to them. There is nothing to unlearn."

"[T]he Mayan[s]... had a scheme for predicting... when Venus was a morning... or . ...[T]hey had a rule for... making corrections and... had a very good way of predicting when Venus was coming up. ...Suppose that the professors (the priests in those days) ...were giving a lecture ...to explain ... these wonderful predictions ...He would say, "What were doing is counting the days, just like youre putting nuts in a pod." ...[The students] did not know a quick and tricky way to add 365 x 8. ...These students were learning ...the laws of arithmetic. Something... to us now, because we have public, free, general education, almost everybody has to... learn... by a tricky scheme... The waitress, just an ordinary person, in two minutes does that. How..? ...Shes ...counting ...415 pennies ...then ...287 more ...and telling you how many pennies you would have got if you counted ...beginning to the end. But its highly educated and very trained to... do that... quickly. ...In the 14th century [it was] mathematicians... who could do that."

"I had too much stuff. My machines came from too far away."

"And then theres a kind of saying that you dont understand it, meaning "I dont believe it. Its too crazy. Its the kind of thing, Im just... Im not going to accept it."... This kind, I hope youll come along with me, and youll have to accept it, because its the way nature works. If you want to know the way nature works... We looked at it, carefully... Thats the way it looks! You dont like it? Go somewhere else... to another universe where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I cant help it! OK? If Im going to tell you honestly what the world looks like to... human beings who have struggled as hard as they can to understand it, I can only tell you what it looks like, and I cannot make it innocent. ...Im not going to simplify it, eh? Im not going to fake it. Im not going to... tell you its something like a ball bearing on a spring. It isnt."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"I say this to you because we Spaniards are a forgetful people, because we are used to living for the moment, because we do not look back, because we do not know how to see the chain of heroes, because we do not contemplate the sum of sacrifices."

"Sharon Tate was my best friend. Once, we were roommates. She introduced me to my husband. She was the godmother to my baby daughter who is named for her. In the six years time that I knew her, she never said an unkind word about anyone."

"Long time to see. (VS: Tapion)"

"Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants." Once in a discussion about the rapid growth of mathematics in modern times, von Neumann was heard to remark that whereas thirty years ago a mathematician could grasp all of mathematics, that is impossible today. Someone asked him: "What percentage of all mathematics might a person aspire to understand today?" Von Neumann went into one of his five-second thinking trances, and said: "About 28 percent."

"Children must be free to think in all directions irrespective of the peculiar ideas of parents who often seal their childrens minds with preconceived prejudices and false concepts of past generations. Unless we are very careful, very careful indeed, and very conscientious, there is still great danger that our children may turn out to be the same kind of people we are."