The intelligent man is never bored.

That's the harm of Close Encounters: that it convinces tens of millions that that's what just science fiction is.

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library.

To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.

To test a perfect theory with imperfect instruments did not impress the Greek philosophers as a valid way to gain knowledge.

The temptation was great to muster what force we could and put up a fight. It's the easiest way out, and the most satisfactory to self-respect--but, nearly invariably, the stupidest.

Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world, and it will seem to them incredible that there was ever anybody who doubted the value of space and wanted to turn his or her back on the Universe.