Gregory Benford > Quotes

“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, is the reverse.”
― Gregory Benford, The Martian Race

“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“When the chemistry is right, all the experiments work.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“Definitions, her grandmother once said, had to be like a fat man's belt - big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.

The Sunborn”
― Gregory Benford

“In a tough situation, don't avoid acting just because it's easier or comfortable. Don't lapse into a passive state. People who give up, die.”
― Gregory Benford and Larry Niven Bowl of Heaven Beth

“The biggest mistake is being too afraid of making one.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“Cynic’ is a word invented by optimists to criticize realists.”
― Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night

“Remember that people break down, too, not just machinery.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“It is one thing to speak of embracing the new, the fresh, the strange. It is another to feel that one is an insect, crawling across a page of the Encyclopedia Britannica, knowing only that something vast is passing by beneath, all without your sensing more than a yawning vacancy.”
― Gregory Benford

“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. —MULLA NASRUDIN”
― Gregory Benford, Bowl of Heaven

“Human life is a voyage on a sea of meaning, not a net of information.”
― Gregory Benford, Foundation's Fear

“If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody.”
― Gregory Benford, Foundation's Fear

“Certainty is the lot of those who do not ask questions.”
― Gregory Benford, Tides of Light

“the Law of Controversy: Passion was inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.”
― Gregory Benford, Timescape: A Novel

“Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available”
― Gregory Benford, Timescape

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
― Gregory Benford, The Martian Race

“Around them small animals scampered along knotted cables and flaking vines, chirruping, squealing, venting yellow farts. Everywhere was animation, purpose, hurry. Momentum.”
― Gregory Benford

“(He) had always thought that life's journey wasn't to get to your grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to tumble in, wrecked, shouting, What a ride!”
― Gregory Benford and Larry Niven Bowl of Heaven Beth

“Even their stable societies oscillated between banquets and barbarism.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“The universe of artifacts was a human one.”
― Gregory Benford, Timescape: A Novel

“His ass knows more words than his mouth does.”
― Gregory Benford, Great Sky River

“Fame is the accumulation of misunderstandings around a well-known name”
― Gregory Benford, Foundation's Fear

“Try to get all your posthumous medals in advance.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“Remembering a narrative alters it.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“...the movies are most people's exposure to ideas about the future.”
― Gregory Benford, The Martian Race

“Yet how could the Empire possibly have kept itself stable, using such crude creatures as humans?”
― Gregory Benford, Foundation's Fear

“Flattery isn’t the highest compliment – parasitism is.”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar

“every professor secretly thinks that what the world needs is a good, solid lecture--from him, of course.”
― Gregory Benford, Foundation's Fear

“Self-knowledge, she thought ruefully, is mostly bad news.”
― Gregory Benford, Shadows of Eternity

“It is better to be wrong than to be vague. In trial and error, the error is the true essential. —FREEMAN DYSON”
― Gregory Benford, Shipstar