feynman books | feynman quotes

Some of Feynman's books

For a complete list of books by and about Feynman, see Amazon.

On the meaning of truth, and how scientific thinking affects his beliefs:

How do you find out if something is true? Once you start doubting, just like you're supposed to doubt - everything is possibly wrong - start out understanding religion by saying "everything is possibly wrong, let us see". As soon as you do that you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from.

I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing - I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about such as whether it means anything to ask "why are we here?" But I don't have to know an answer - I don't feel frightened by not knowing things - by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as i can tell possibly --- it doesn't frighten me. (Listen to Feynman).

Quotes excerpted from the NOVA video, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

On the universal generality of the law of gravity:

Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.

Quote excerpted from the Messenger Lectures (The Character of Physical Law) #1: The Law of Gravitation. (on video at U.C. Berkeley's Media Resource Center, which has a great collection of Science and Tech videos).