Some of my Favorite Quotes

Douglas Adams

"A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." Douglas Adams

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." Douglas Adams

John F. Kennedy Quotes

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." President John F. Kennedy

"There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." President John F. Kennedy

"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly." President John F. Kennedy

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project...will be more exciting, or more impressive to mankind, or more important...and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish..." President John F. Kennedy

"We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share." President John F. Kennedy

"... the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward, and so will space." President John F. Kennedy, 1962.

"But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?" President John F. Kennedy, 1962.

Ronald Reagan Quotes

"The problem is not that people are taxed too little; the problem is that government spends too much." President Ronald Reagan

"Let us resolve that we will stop spreading dependency and start spreading opportunity; that we will stop spreading bondage and start spreading freedom." President Ronald Reagan

"Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States." President Ronald Reagan

"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." President Ronald Reagan

"Our nation is indeed fortunate that we can still draw on an immense reservoir of courage, character, and fortitude, that we are still blessed with heroes like those of the space shuttle Challenger. Man will continue his conquest of space. To reach out for new goals and ever-greater achievements, that is the way we shall commemorate our seven Challenger heroes." President Ronald Reagan

Abraham Lincoln Quotes

"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just." President Abraham Lincol

"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better." President Abraham Lincol

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." President Abraham Lincol

Wernher von Braun Quotes

"One test result is worth one thousand expert opinions." Wernher von Braun

"A human being is the best computer available to place in a spacecraft. . . It is also the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor." Werner von Braun

"Our two greatest problems are gravity and paper work. We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming." Werner von Braun

"I only hope that we shall not wait to adopt the program until after our astronomers have reported a new and unsuspected aster[oid] moving across their fields of vision with menacing speed. At that point it will be too late!" Wernher von Braun, 1953

"Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go - and he'll do plenty well when he gets there." Wernher von Braun, 1958

"It [the rocket] will free man from his remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet. It will open to him the gates of heaven." Wernher von Braun

"My friends there was dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the earth. There was dancing again when the first Americans landed on the moon. I'd like to ask you, don't hang up your dancing slippers." Wernher von Braun

"I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution." Wernher von Braun

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." Wernher von Braun

Alan Shepherd Quotes

"Unfortunately the suit is so stiff, I can't do that with two hands, but I'm going to try a little sand trap shot here." Alan Shepard, Apollo 14, golfing on the Moon, 6 February 1971.

"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." Alan Shepherd

"Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?" Alan B. Shepard Jr.

Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

"Remember this: once the human race is established on more than one planet and especially, in more than one solar system, there is no way now imaginable to kill off the human race." Robert Heinlein, 1961

"Earth is too small a basket for mankind to keep all its eggs in." Robert A. Heinlein

"Once you get to earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system." Robert A. Heinlein

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert A. Heinlein

Isaac Asimov Quotes

"The world is being Americanized and technologized to its limits, and that makes it dull for some people. Reaching the Moon restores the frontier and gives us the lands beyond." Isaac Asimov

"There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years?" Isaac Asimov

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Henry David Thoreau (From 'Walden')

"I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of." Henry David Thoreau

"The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor." Henry David Thoreau

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Henry David Thoreau

"Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." Henry David Thoreau

"When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced." Henry David Thoreau

"I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters." Henry David Thoreau

"And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him." Henry David Thoreau

"Men have become the tools of their tools." Henry David Thoreau

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (From 'Civil Disobedience')

"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically." Henry David Thoreau

"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have." Henry David Thoreau

"It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right." Henry David Thoreau

"If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplation's. I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders." Henry David Thoreau

"The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way." Henry David Thoreau

"Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform." Henry David Thoreau

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (From 'Life Without Principle')

"Let us consider the way in which we spend our lives." Henry David Thoreau

"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." Henry David Thoreau

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer." Henry David Thoreau

"Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now." Henry David Thoreau

"In my opinion, the sun was made to light worthier toil than this." Henry David Thoreau

“They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and make-shifts, merely. They put off the day of settlement indefinitely, and meanwhile, the debt accumulates." Henry David Thoreau

Miscellaneous Quotes

"You know, of course, that this means war." Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd: 1942

"Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering." Arthur C. Clarke

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." Archimedes

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." Arthur Carlson, famous broadcasting executive

"There are three types of people in the world; people who can count, and people who can't." Unknown

"There are two kinds of people in the world, Those who divide people into two groups and those who do not." Unknown

"Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." Isaac Asimov

"We shall not cease our explorations, and the end of our exploring will be to arrive back where we started and know the place for the first time." T.S. Eliot

"I had the ambition to not only go farther than man had gone before, but to go as far as it was possible to go." Captain Cook

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge." Carl Sagan

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