Modern science says: ‚The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.‘ From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

We’ve gotta become the Martians. I’m a Martian – I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

It’s in responsibility that most people find the meaning that sustains them through life. It’s not in happiness. It’s not in impulsive pleasure.

The most obvious characteristic of science is its application: the fact that, as a consequence of science, one has a power to do things. And the effect this power has had need hardly be mentioned. The whole industrial revolution would almost have been impossible without the development of science.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

The pagan loves the earth in order to enjoy it and confine himself within it; the Christian in order to make it purer and draw from it the strength to escape from it.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil nor do I serve any.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

Life is better when people are working, happy, and spending money.

Those who have been writing literature have not been writing life.

I love the sea.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

Humans are amphibians – half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

Women tend to be more intuitive, or to admit to being intuitive, and maybe the hard science approach isn’t so attractive. The way that science is taught is very cold. I would never have become a scientist if I had been taught like that.

If anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science, since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‚Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.‘

Wisdom begins in wonder.

My message to the Americans is the same as to everyone – that is to unite behind the science and to act on the science.

We conceal it from ourselves in vain – we must always love something. In those matters seemingly removed from love, the feeling is secretly to be found, and man cannot possibly live for a moment without it.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

A wounded deer leaps the highest.

It is not scientifically possible to accurately predict the outcome of an action. To suggest otherwise runs contrary to historical experience and the nature of war.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

The brain is wider than the sky.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.