# Quote — Richard P. Feynman, Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman

> And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.

- Author: [Richard P. Feynman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman.md)
- Book: [Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman.md)
- Page: 172
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Surely_You're_Joking,_Mr._Feynman!_(1985)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/and-then-i-thought

## More from this book

> I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you.

p. 255 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/ill-never-make.md)

> Since then I never pay attention to anything by "experts". I calculate everything myself.

p. 255 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/since-then-i-never.md)

> [John] von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!

p. 132 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-p-feynman/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/john-von-neumann.md)