The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress, we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt.
- Richard Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think?, p. 245
Men are born soft and supple;
dead they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.
Tao Te Ching 76, translated by Stephen Mitchell.
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