“Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.”

Everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough

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.

Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?

I love to think. I once considered taking drugs as an attempt to better understand an altered state of mind; however, I decided not to. I didn’t want to chance ruining the machine.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.

You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.

Never confuse education with intelligence, you can have a PhD and still be an idiot.

I have to keep going to find out ultimately what is the matter with it in the end.

I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.

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 believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

The imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.