# Richard Feynman's best quotes – and two he never said

From 'What I cannot create, I do not understand' to the Challenger report: Richard Feynman's most quoted lines with their real source, plus two famous ones that are not his.

- 262 votes · 13 items
- Sep 24, 2019 · Cooper M.
- https://even.best/en/l/4641/richard-feynman-s-best-quotes-and-two-he-never-said

## Top 13

1. **What I cannot create, I do not understand.** (29 · ▲30 ▼1) — Written on his Caltech blackboard at the time of his death, February 1988.
2. **The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.** (23 · ▲25 ▼2) — 'Cargo Cult Science', Caltech commencement address, 1974.
3. **Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.** (17 · ▲20 ▼3) — 'What Is Science?', address to the National Science Teachers Association, 1966.
4. **You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird.** (16 · ▲17 ▼1) — What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988).
5. **For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.** (15 · ▲18 ▼3) — Rogers Commission report on the Challenger disaster, Appendix F, June 1986.
6. **Since then I never pay attention to anything by 'experts'. I calculate everything myself.** (13 · ▲16 ▼3) — Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985).
7. **Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.** (13 · ▲15 ▼2) — To a reporter, c. 1965; quoted in People magazine, 1985.
8. **I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.** (12 · ▲16 ▼4) — The Character of Physical Law (1965), chapter 6.
9. **Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.** (12 · ▲15 ▼3) — Attributed: not in any of his books; the oldest printed source is from 2000, by Robyn Williams.
10. **The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.** (11 · ▲16 ▼5) — 'The Value of Science', National Academy of Sciences, 1955.
11. **I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing.** (11 · ▲15 ▼4) — The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, BBC interview, 1981.
12. **Shut up and calculate!** (8 · ▲11 ▼3) — Misattributed: it comes from physicist David Mermin, summing up the Copenhagen interpretation.
13. **The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.** (6 · ▲10 ▼4) — What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988), on what he learned from his mother.

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