The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

Happier are all men than the dwellers in Faerie – or the gods, for that matter…Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness that can see naught above or beyond itself…the day draws nigh when Faerie shall fade, the Erlking himself shrink to a woodland sprite and then to nothing, and the gods go under. And the worst of it is, I cannot believe it wrong that the immortals will not live forever.

At each stage...entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.

Heaven is not as narrowly literal-minded as hell.

In my considered opinion, the profit to be made by permanent settlement in space is nothing less than the survival of industrial civilization, and therefore the survival of nearly the entire human race, along with such amenities as peace, freedom, enough to eat, and the chance to reach a high age in good health.

My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won't yield to computation.