Now such a man would never get anywhere in this country, I think. It’s never been tried, anyway. This is in the attitude of mind of the populace, that they have to have an answer and that a man who gives an answer is better than a man who gives no answer, when the real fact of the matter is, in most cases, it is the other way around. And the result of this of course is that the politician must give an answer. And the result of this is that political promises can never be kept. It is a mechanical fact; it is impossible. The result of that is that nobody believes campaign promises. ...It’s all generated, maybe, by the fact that the attitude of the populace is to try to find the answer instead of finding a man who has a way of getting at the answer."
--Richard Feynman, 1963; as quoted in The Meaning of it All
"You know there are about a hundred billion stars in a galaxy - ten to the eleventh power. That used to be considered a huge number. We used to call numbers like that 'astronomical numbers.' Today it's less than the national debt. We ought to call them 'economical numbers.'" --Richard Feynman, 1987, as quoted in Feynman's Lost Lecture