“…study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

excerpt from letter to J. M. Szabados (30 November 1965), quoted in "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track The Letters of Richard P. Feynman" (2005) by Michelle Feynman and Carl Feynman, p. 206

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 10, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "…study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible." by Richard Feynman?
Richard Feynman photo
Richard Feynman 181
American theoretical physicist 1918–1988

Related quotes

Fred Astaire photo

“He is the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times… you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a move there. It was all Astaire's originally.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

George Balanchine, quoted in Thomas, Bob. Astaire, the Man, The Dancer. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1985. ISBN 0297784021 p. 33.

Jacob Bronowski photo

“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it.”

Episode 11: "Knowledge or Certainty"
Source: The Ascent of Man (1973)
Context: The symbol of the University is the iron statue outside the Rathskeller of a barefoot goose girl that every student kisses at graduation. The University is a Mecca to which students come with something less than perfect faith. It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it.

Verghese Kurien photo

“Where you have the will you have the skill; study, search, practice application; healthy irreverence; look for the kink in the thing, be curious.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

His views on his multi-skills in p. 168.
Quote, Thought Leaders

P. D. Ouspensky photo

“Possibly the most interesting first impression of my life came from the world of dreams.”

P. D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) Russian esotericist

Source: A New Model of the Universe (1932), p. 242

Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one's best.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Statement of 1937 or earlier, as quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) edited by Herbert Victor Prochnow
Context: Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one's best.

Perry Anderson photo

“The first, and most obvious, feature that separates Habermas’s later treatment of law from his original study of the public sphere is its completely unhistorical method.”

Perry Anderson (1938) British historian

Spectrum: From Right to Left in the World of Ideas (2005), Ch. 5. "Norming Facts, Jürgen Habermas" (2004)

Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“Rebellion against your handicaps gets you nowhere. Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world — making the most of one's best.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Statement of 1937 or earlier, as quoted in The New Speaker's Treasury of Wit and Wisdom (1958) edited by Herbert Victor Prochnow

“This is the true paradox of Chopin: he is most original in his use of the most fundamental and traditional technique. That is what made him at the same time the most conservative and the most radical composer of his generation.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style

Bill Nye photo

“Science is the most important thing you can study in school.”

Bill Nye (1955) American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, writer, scientist and former mechanical engineer

[NewsBank, 35, Associated Press, TV host decries U.S. failure to value science, math education, The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, December 10, 2000]

Walt Whitman photo

Related topics