"Western man had relearned-what the rest of the world had never forgotten-that there was nothing sinful in leisure as long as it did not degenerate into mere sloth."

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value."

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God - but to create him."

"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."

"That requires as much power as a small radio transmitter--and rather similar skills to operate. For it's the application of the power, not its amount, that matters. How long do you think Hitler's career as a dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear? Or if a steady musical note, loud enough to drown all other sounds and to prevent sleep, filled his brain night and day? Nothing brutal, you appreciate. Yet, in the final analysis, just as irresistible as a tritium bomb."

"It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind."

"Never attribute to malevolence what is merely due to incompetence."

"But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme."

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean."

"The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness, but by the end of the twenty-first century there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice."

"He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world."

"Michael O'Toole had no difficulty recognizing which questions in life should be answered by physics and which ones by religion."

"1. 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.2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible."

"Some dangers are so spectacular and so much beyond normal experience that the mind refuses to accept them as real, and watches the approach of doom without any sense of apprehension. The man who looks at the onrushing tidal wave, the descending avalanche, or the spinning funnel of the tornado, yet makes no attempt to flee, is not necessarily paralyzed with fright or resigned to an unavoidable fate. He may simply be unable to believe that the message of his eyes concerns him personally. It is all happening to somebody else."

"Now, before you make a movie, you have to have a script, and before you have a script, you have to have a story; though some avant-garde directors have tried to dispense with the latter item, you'll find their work only at art theaters."

"Yes, it made sense, and was so absurdly simple that it would take a genius to think of it. And, perhaps, someone who did not expect to do it himself."

"Whether we are based on carbon or on silicon makes no fundamental difference, we should each be treated with appropriate respect."

"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 towards new ends."

"And so Discovery drove on toward Saturn, as often as not pulsating with the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain that had been dust for twice a hundred years."

"What was more, they had taken the first step toward genuine friendship. They had exchanged vulnerabilities."

"Though the man-apes often fought and wrestled one another, their disputes very seldom resulted in serious injuries. Having no claws or fighting canine teeth, and being well protected by hair, they could not inflict much harm on one another. In any event, they had little surplus energy for such unproductive behavior; snarling and threatening was a much more efficient way of asserting their points of view."

"The confrontation lasted about five minutes; then the display died out as quickly as it had begun, and everyone drank his fill of the muddy water. Honor had been satisfied; each group had staked its claim to its own territory."

"Once, I believed that space couldhave no power over faith, just as I believed the heavens declared the glory of God'shandwork. Now I have seen that handwork, and my faith is sorely troubled."

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."

"Imagine that every man's mind is an island, surrounded by ocean. Each seems isolated, yet in reality all are linked by the bedrock from which they spring. If the ocean were to vanish, that would be the end of the islands. They would all be part of one continent, but the individuality would have gone."

"Those wanderers must have looked on Earth, circling safely in the narrow zone between fire and ice, and must have guessed that it was the favourite of the Sun's children."

"Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories."

"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."

"Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now."

"If man can live in Manhattan, he can live anywhere."

"Let us say that you might have become a telepathic cancer, a malignant mentality which in its inevitable dissolution would have poisoned other and greater minds."

"Feeling extremely foolish, the acting representative of Homo sapiens watched his First Contact stride away across the Raman plain, totally indifferent to his presence."

"I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical."

"One of the greatest tragedies in mankind's entire history may be that morality was hijacked by religion."

"The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium."

"Humor was the enemy of desire."

"Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal."

"He had sometimes wondered if the real reason why men sought danger was that only thus could they find the companionship and solidarity which they unconsciously craved."

"After the struggle for sheer existence, they had no energy left for a civilization."

"But please remember: this is only a work of fiction. The truth, as always, will be far stranger."

"After their encounter on the approach to Jupiter, there would aways be a secret bond between them---not of love, but of tenderness, which is often more enduring."

"The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale."

"This is only a work of fiction , The Truth as always will be far stranger."

"Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society."

"This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one."

"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."

"Long ago the signalling had become no more than a meaningless ritual, now maintained by an animal which had forgotten to learn and a robot which had never known to forget."

"Excessive interest in pathological behavior was itself pathological."

"New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can't be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!"