No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
Interpretation
Every problem, regardless of its size, matters if we can address it effectively.
Richard P. Feynman's quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and addressing all problems, no matter how insignificant they may appear. It highlights the value of taking action and the belief that our efforts can make a difference, reinforcing the idea that every challenge is worthy of our attention if we have the means to resolve it.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, one could quote Feynman to inspire others.
The philosophical question before us is, when we make an observation of our track in the past, does the result of our observation become real in the same sense that the final state would be defined if an outside observer were to make the observation?
We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?
Science is a way to teach how something gets to be known, what is not known, to what extent things are known (for nothing is known absolutely), how to handle doubt and uncertainty, what the rules of evidence are, how to think about things so that judgments can be made, how to distinguish truth from fraud, and from show.
The most savory grape, the one that produces the wines with best texture and aroma, the sweetest and most generous, doesn't grow in rich soil but in stony land; the plant, with a mother's obstinacy, overcomes obstacles to thrust its roots deep into the ground and take advantage of every drop of water. That, my grandmother explained to me, is how flavors are concentrated in the grape.
And a mistake repeated more than once is a decision.
Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed).
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
Anger tears me up inside... My own... or anyone else's.
You should not be carried away by the dictation of the mind, but the mind should be carried by your dictation.
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