To do any important work in physics a very good mathematical ability and aptitude are required. Some work in applications can be done without this, but it will not be very inspired. If you must satisfy your "personal curiosity concerning the mysteries of nature" what will happen if these mysteries turn out to be laws expressed in mathematical terms (as they do turn out to be)? You cannot understand the physical world in any deep or satisfying way without using mathematical reasoning with facility.

I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

The exception tests the rule.

Winning a Nobel Prize is no big deal, but winning it with an IQ of 124 is really something.

All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,'--which is just another way of saying that you can't.

Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to get a hallucination going," wrote Feynman, "but on a few occasions, when I smoked some marijuana beforehand, it came very quickly.

I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder.