It’s important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it’s been possible, and that window could be open for a long time – hopefully it is – or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.

The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.

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.

The boundary between space and the earth is purely arbitrary. And I’ll probably always be interested in this planet – it’s my favorite.

Science fiction, to me, has not only things that wouldn’t happen, but other planets.

SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

As soon as there is life there is danger.

We’re taking all of the lessons that we have from New Shepard and incorporating them into New Glenn.

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.

You need to live in a dome initially, but over time you could terraform Mars to look like Earth and eventually walk around outside without anything on… So it’s a fixer-upper of a planet.

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

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

When in doubt, don’t.

If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Perhaps one day I will go into space.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

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

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

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

The difference between a stranger sending you a message that you might be interested in at a very low volume level, no repetition, just sending it to very few people, and that being done as spam – those things get close enough that you want to be careful never to filter out something that’s legitimate.

To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves.

When we build our own colonies, we can do them in near-Earth vicinity, because people are going to want to come back to Earth. Very few people – for a long time, anyway – are going to want to abandon Earth altogether.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

There are no small accidents on this circuit.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

We fly to 106 kilometers. We’ve always had as our mission that we always wanted to fly above the Karman line because we didn’t want there to be any asterisks next to your name about whether you’re an astronaut or not.

I think a lot of the American people feel more than a little disappointed that the high-water mark for human exploration was 1969. The dream of human space travel has almost died for a lot of people.

The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX.

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

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Gambling can turn into a dangerous two-way street when you least expect it. Weird things happen suddenly, and your life can go all to pieces.

He that’s secure is not safe.

I have warned many times about the guaranteed dangers of betting with your heart instead of your head – big darkness, soon come – but every once in a while you get a fair chance to have it both ways, and the annual NCAA basketball Tournament is one of them.

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.

It is true that SpaceX is partially a government contractor, but it would be unfair to say that SpaceX is entirely a government contractor.

Let no such man be trusted.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

A wet spot on the floor kind of put a scare in myself, so you never know inside those lines what might happen.

I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

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

No one knows who is listening, say nothing you would not wish put in the newspapers.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It’s sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.

My family wasn’t rich, so when it comes to money, I tend to think, ‚Err on the side of caution.‘

I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.

I don’t know all the future steps, but I know one of them: we need to build a low-cost, highly operable, reusable launch vehicle. No matter which path we take, it has to include that gate, and so that’s why that’s Blue Origin’s mission.

The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.

Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.