The meaning of it all (Primary source)
Three provocative 1963 lectures exploring science’s relationship to religion, politics, and society, wherein Feynman champions skepticism and intellectual honesty as essential virtues beyond the laboratory, published posthumously in 1998.
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“Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.”
Richard Feynman
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“Knowledge is of no real value if all you can tell me is what happened yesterday. It is necessary to tell what will happen tomorrow.”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“I think that to keep trying new solutions is the way to do everything.”
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“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”
— Leonardo da Vinci Disputed“Take things always by their smooth handle.”
— Thomas Jefferson Primary source“I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”
— Richard Feynman Primary source“The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. It be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, them it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.”
— Helen Keller Primary source