Creationism, perhaps the most pernicious of the intellectual perversions now afflicting the American public.

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

Civilization will reach maturity only when it learns to value diversity of character and of ideas.

When the Sun shrinks to a dull red dwarf, it will not be dying. It will just be starting to live and everything that has gone before will merely be a prelude to its real history.

Perhaps no other year before or since 1984 has been awaited with such eager anticipation.

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.

Now I understand,” said the last man.