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

The numbers of distinct human societies or nations, when our race is twice its present age, may be far greater than the total number of all the men who have ever lived up to the present time.

In this single galaxy of ours there are eighty-seven thousand million suns. [...] In challenging it, you would be like ants attempting to label and classify all the grains of sand in all the deserts of the world. [...] It is a bitter thought, but you must face it. The planets you may one day possess. But the stars are not for man.

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.

Anything that is theoretically possible will be achieved in practice, no matter what the technical difficulties are, if it is desired greatly enough.

Science is the only religion of mankind.