"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing…"

"I was very surprised that a lot of artists, when they found out I was a scientist, they would start telling me about their theories of the universe, and they were always crackpot theories."

"I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb."

"I was once in a situation where I was giving a lecture, and I had some equations on the board. A guy in the audience stood up and said, 'Professor Feynman, your equations are wrong!' I looked at them …"

"I was scared because of this same thing I was talking about — I'm not so good at this. “The Dean's tea” — it sounded so silly, you know, and high class."