Richard Feynman on Deep Work Quotes

"If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."

"I was always very focused on the problem at hand. I would sit in a room and think about the problem."

"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."

"I have to be very irresponsible. I tell everyone I’m not doing anything. If they ask me to be on a committee, I say no."

"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible."

"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."

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

"I thought: I'm going to play with physics. I’m going to do it for no other reason than that I want to."

"I didn't want to do anything else but the physics. I was single-minded in my pursuit of the answer."

"One cannot enjoy the world without some sense of the unknown."

"I don't have to be good at everything. I just want to be good at the thing I am doing right now."

"I am always very stupid. It takes me a long time to understand things. I have to go over them again and again."

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

"I would spend hours, days, weeks on a single equation until I understood exactly how it worked."

"I don't believe I can really do any work without having a long period of time to get into the thing."

"What I cannot create, I do not understand."

"Work as hard as you can on the things that you like to do the best."

"I had to create a space where I could not be interrupted. I would ignore the phone, ignore the mail, ignore everything."

"I’m going to do something that’s fun, I’m going to do it tonight, and I’m going to do it for no other reason than that I want to do it."

"I’ve always been very interested in why I can’t do things. I’m always very stupid. It takes me a long time to understand things."

"To do any real good at physics, you have to be willing to be a fool."

"I decided I’m only going to do things that I want to do, and I’m going to do them for the fun of it."

"I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing."

"You must have the discipline to follow the thought to its conclusion, no matter how long it takes."

"I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned."

"The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it."

"You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state."

"Knowing how to solve a problem is not the same as understanding why the solution works."

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

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

"I was always very single-minded. When I was working on something, I didn't want to be disturbed."

"I was always very much alone in my thoughts."

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there."