Judge me by my deeds, though they are few, rather than my words, though they are many.

Every age has its dreams, its symbols of romance. Past generations were moved by the graceful power of the great windjammers, by the distant whistle of locomotives pounding through the night, by the caravans leaving on the Golden Road to Samarkand, by quinqueremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir . . . Our grandchildren will likewise have their inspiration-among the equatorial stars. They will be able to look up at the night sky and watch the stately procession of the Ports of Earth-the strange new harbors where the ships of space make their planetfalls and their departures.

The moment when one first meets a great work of art has an impact that can never again be recaptured.

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

Space can be mapped and crossed and occupied without definable limit; but it can never be conquered.

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

But he knew well enough that any man in the right circumstances could be dehumanised by panic.