Richard Feynman — "It's a great thing to be able to say, 'I don't know.'"
It's a great thing to be able to say, 'I don't know.'
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Richard Feynman
"I was at a party once, and some woman said to me, 'You're a scientist, you know all about radiation. How much radiation is in a banana?' I said, 'A banana has about 1/1000th of a milligram of radium i…"
"I was a little bit of a maverick."
"I'm not a genius. I'm just intensely curious."
"I don't think there's any such thing as a 'best' way to do anything. There's just what works."
"Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation."
About Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
American theoretical physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel for QED, developed Feynman diagrams, and wrote the Feynman Lectures on Physics. Closely associated with Julian Schwinger (co-Nobelist for QED) and Murray Gell-Mann (Caltech rival and Eightfold-Way physicist). For an intellectual contrast, see Deepak Chopra, physician and quantum-mysticism author — Feynman's Caltech 'cargo cult science' commencement address is the precise template for what he saw as misuse of physics terminology — Chopra-style appropriation of quantum vocabulary for metaphysical claims is the canonical example of what Feynman called 'fooling yourself'.
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Admitting you don't know something is a sign of strength, not weakness. Real understanding begins with honest uncertainty. Pretending to have answers you don't have is intellectually lazy and leads to bad thinking. When you can genuinely say 'I don't know,' you've created space for curiosity, real investigation, and eventual discovery. Certainty is often an illusion; acknowledging ignorance is the first honest step toward actual knowledge.
Relevance to Richard Feynman
Feynman built his entire scientific identity on doubt as a virtue. He famously said 'the first principle is that you must not fool yourself.' He applied this ruthlessly — as a Manhattan Project physicist who later questioned nuclear policy, and as the Challenger disaster investigator who exposed what NASA wouldn't admit. His Nobel Prize-winning work in quantum electrodynamics emerged from refusing to accept incomplete or dishonest answers.
The era
Feynman worked during the Cold War, when science and government projected certainty as power. The atomic bomb, space race, and nuclear deterrence required scientists to appear authoritative and decisive. Yet this era birthed Big Science bureaucracy, where institutional confidence often masked real ignorance. Feynman rejected that culture. His 1986 Challenger investigation publicly embarrassed NASA's false certainty about O-ring failure rates, proving that admitting 'I don't know' prevents catastrophes.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].