1. “A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”
2. ”All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.”
3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
4. ”As he stared into the blue infinity that had swallowed his son, the stars seemed suddenly very close. "Give us another hundred years, he whispered, "and we'll face you with clean hands and hearts - whatever shapes you be."”
5. "At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years."
6. “... change depends on individual acts of courage and commitment. Most such acts are private, invisible, and uncelebiated. But some find a place in the public spotlight; and their influence goes far beyond mere example.”
7. 'Faith is believing what you know isn't true.'
8. ”For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert.”
9. “Guns are the crutches of the impotent.”
10. “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.”
11. ”Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.”
12. “I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.”
13. “Idealism is the horse, but reason is the rider.”
14. "If in fact we are alone, it means that we're not only the heirs to the cosmos, but its guardians, which is a portentous thought.... Either alternative is amazing: whether we're alone or not alone."
15. 'Imagine you are an intelligent extraterrestrial, concerned with only verifiable truths. You discover a species which has divided itself into thousands of tribal groups holding an incredible variety of beliefs about the origin of the universe and the way to behave in it. Although many of them have ideas in common, even when there's a ninety-nine per cent overlap, the remaining one per cent is enough to set them killing and torturing each other, over trivial points of doctorate, utterly meaningless to outsiders. How to account for such irrational behavior? Religion is the by product of fear - a reaction to a mysterious and hostile universe. For much of human prehistory, it may have been a necessary evil - but why so much more evil than necessary? I said evil and I mean it, because fear leads to cruelty.'
16. ”In this universe the night was falling; the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered; and along the path he once had followed, Man would one day go again.”
17. "I think that the sort of unmotivated malevolence (of aliens from space) which is typical of many science fiction stories is unlikely because some of the invaders in space that we've encountered in fiction would simply have destroyed themselves before they got anywhere else. And as I've suggested in quite a few essays, with a very high intelligence would also go higher moral values because, without these, intelligence is self-destructive. However, at the same time, one must admit that in a practically infinite universe almost anything is theoretically possible to happen somewhere. One can imagine, for example, a case where even a benevolent and intelligent race, if it lost its home planet, would have no alternative, or at least think it had no alternative, but to conquer another solar syatem. I think this is unlikely but certainly not impossible."
18. "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him."
19. "It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars."
20. ”It was a pity that there was no radar to guide one across the trackless seas of life. Every man had to find his own way, steered by some secret compass of the soul.”
21. "Like all revolutionary new ideas, the subject has had to pass through three stages, which may be summed up by these reactions: 1)'It's crazy - don't waste my time'; 2)'It's possible, but it's not worth doing'; 3)'I always said it was a good idea.'"
22. ”Like most human tragedies, this one had been caused not by evil intentions, but by errors of judgement, misunderstandings....”
23. 'Looking out across the immensity to the great suns and circling planets, to worlds of infinite mystery and promise, can you believe that man is to spend all his days cooped and crawling on the surface of this tiny Earth - this moist pebble with its clinging film of air? Or do you, on the other hand, believe that his destiny is indeed among the stars, and that one day our descendants will bridge the seas of space?'
24. ”Many and strange are the universes that drift like bubbles in the foam upon the River of Time.”
25. “My favourite definition of 'Intellectual' is: 'A person whose education surpasses their intelligence.'”
26. “No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.”
27. ”Now he was master of the world, and he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”
28. “Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.”
29. “Science fiction is the only genuine consciousness expanding drug.”
30. ”The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.”
31. “[Science fiction is] the only genuine consciousness-expanding drug.”
32. ”Space is what stops everything from happening in the same place.”
33. ”The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life - much less intelligence - beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime.”
34. ”The lives of men, and all their hopes and fears, were so little against the inconceivable immensities that they dared to challenge.”
35. ”The mind has an extraordinary ability to "see" things that are hoped for.”
36. "The moon is the first milestone on the road to the stars."
37. ”The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.”
38. "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
39. “The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.”
40. “The realization that our small planet is only one of many worlds, gives mankind the perspective it needs to realize sooner that our own world belongs to all of its creatures, that the moon landing marks the end of our childhood as a race and the beginning of a newer and better civilization.
41. ”There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends.”
42. “There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.”
43. 'The spirit of curiosity and wonder is the driving force behind all Man's achievements. If it ever fails, the story of our race is coming to an end.'
44. ”This is the first age that's paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.”
45. “We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 -- and half the things he knows at 40 hadn't been discovered when he was 20?”
46. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
47. "When beauty is universal, it loses its power to move the heart, and only its absence can produce any emotional effect."
