I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.

Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.

American imperialism is often traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii in 1898.

We have one planet in our solar system that’s habitable, and that’s the Earth, and space travel can transform things back here for the better. First of all, by just having people go to space and look back on this fragile planet we live on. People have come back transformed and have done fantastic things.

Life is warfare.

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.

It’s a pity that nobody has found an exploding black hole. If they had, I would have won a Nobel prize.

Why there is one body in our System qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, I know no reason but because the Author of the System thought it convenient; and why there is but one body of this kind, I know no reason, but because one was sufficient to warm and enlighten all the rest.

If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we’re ever likely to do that is by going into space.

It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.

Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

I read ‚The High Frontier‘ in high school. I read it multiple times, and I was already primed. As soon as I read it, it made sense to me. It seemed very clear that planetary surfaces were not the right place for an expanding civilization inside our solar system.

We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.

Once you get into space, you can really unleash a lot of creativity, but the launch itself? I have been through all of the creative ways, and believe me, chemical rockets are the best.

One thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn’t work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one.

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.

We are not even close to finishing the basic dream of what the PC can be.

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.

If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation – and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

I have wanted to fly into space for many years, but never imagined it would really be feasible.

Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

We will have to leave this planet, and we’re going to leave it, and it’s going to make this planet better.

I’m trying to get to Mars before everyone else.

Mars is the only place in the solar system where it’s possible for life to become multi-planetarian.

Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

In order for us to have a future that’s exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we’re a space-bearing civilization.

My vision is for a fully reusable rocket transport system between Earth and Mars that is able to re-fuel on Mars – this is very important – so you don’t have to carry the return fuel when you go there.

I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.

I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.

We’ve gotta reinvest in space travel. We should’ve never left the moon.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.

I think there’s every reason this 21st century will be much happier.

The strategic objective of New Shepard is to practice, and a lot of the subcomponents of New Shepard actually get directly reused on the second stage of New Glenn.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Happiness is just another of the tricks that our genetic system plays on us to carry out its only role, which is the survival of the species.

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.

I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if I were a refugee.

In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the Moon, but flying in a completely new medium.

I have no definite talent or trade, and how I stay alive is largely a matter of magic.

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.

We need to know what the resources of the moon are. We have great evidence now because of different kinds of radar and spectroscopic analysis that people have been able to do. But we really do need to go visit there, and we can do that with a robot craft without any problem.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows… what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants – if they survive that long – will see.