“I am not absolutely sure of anything”
You see, one thing is, 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 which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am 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 we’re here… I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.
Richard P. Feynman, from a transcript of BBC television program Horizon in 1981. To be found in Jeffrey Robbins (ed.): The Pleasure of Finding things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Allen Lane 2000. Also in: James Gleick: Genius: Life & Science of Richard Feynman. Pantheon 1992.