c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
The agnostic does not simply say, "l do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others. He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know, -- he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact -- he drives you from the realm of reason -- he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture -- into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
Being tough isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. Looking back on it, though, I can see I was too used to being strong, and never tried to understand those who were weak. I was too used to being fortunate, and didn’t try to understand those less fortunate. Too used to being healthy, and didn’t try to understand the pain of those who weren’t. Whenever I saw a person in trouble, somebody paralyzed by events, I decided it was entirely his fault––he just wasn’t trying hard enough. People who complained were just plain lazy. My outlook on life was unshakable, and practical, but lacked any human warmth. And not a single person around me pointed this out.’” - Miu
— Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
But the crowds are surging around them and her backpack is heavy on her shoulders and the boy's eyes are searching hers with something like loneliness , like the very last thing he wants is to be left behind right now. And that's something Hadley can understand, too, and so after a moment she nods in agreement, and he tips the suitcase forward onto it's wheels, and they begin to walk.
— Jennifer E. Smith, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
Love is the reason why, in confusion, we understand.
— David Paul Kirkpatrick, The Address Of Happiness
[I would] rather discover one cause than gain the kingdom of Persia.
— Democritus
Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the essential two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos… A third element of man’s nature is this: that he shall not understand what he is doing.
— John Brunner, The Compleat Traveller in Black
The true reader must be an extension of the author. He is the higher court that receives the case already prepared by the lower court. The feeling by means of which the author has separated out the materials of his work, during reading separates out again the unformed and the formed aspects of the book—and if the reader were to work through the book according to his own idea, a second reader would refine it still more, with the result that, since the mass that had been worked through would constantly be poured into fresh vessels, the mass would finally become an essential component—a part of the active spirit.Through impartial rereading of his book the author can refine his book himself. With strangers the particular character is usually lost, because the talent of fully entering into another person’s idea is so rare. Often even in the author himself. It is not a sign of superior education and greater powers to justifiably find fault with a book. When receiving new impressions, greater sharpness of mind is quite natural.
— Novalis, Novalis: Philosophical Writings
Listen, she said, "cherubim have come to my planet before.""I know that. Where do you think I got my information?""What do you know about us?""I have heard that your host planet is shadowed, that it is troubled.""It is beautiful," Meg said defensively.She felt a rippling of his wings. "In the middle of your cities?""Well-no-but I don't live in a city.""And is your planet peaceful?""Well-no-it isn't very peaceful.""I had the idea," Proginoskes moved reluctantly within her mind, "that there are wars on your planet. People fighting and killing each other.""Yes, that's so, but-""And children go hungry.""Yes.""And people don't understand each other.""Not always.""And there's-there's hate?""Yes."She felt Proginoskes pulling away. "All I want to do," he was murmuring to himself, "is go some place quiet and recite the names of the stars...
— Madeleine L'Engle
Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as though it is not necessary even to study Caesar in order to understand him. Yet we know that the interplay of theory and research makes both for understanding of the specific case and expansion of the general rule.
— Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure
We cannot be judge and jury, the hardest thing is to understand the unknown and in knowing the hidden all things are revealed giving truth.God is watcher during all moments and at the end the real Judge.
— Zarina Bibi
Everyone's afraid of what they don't understand," Ringil said quietly.
— Richard K. Morgan, The Steel Remains
I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.
— Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
I knew in that moment that everything happens for a reason, but we can’t always know the reason when the journey begins. Some things we can only understand at the end of our journey.
— Mike Ericksen, Upon Destiny's Song
To rely solely on logic is in essence to operate within a structure of limited knowledge and understanding
— Stephan Labossiere
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
— Samuel Johnson
I was to discover that the quest for human understanding is a lifetime one that has no end in sight.
— Margaret Bourke-White
We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening. The truth which one puts into one's words does not carve out a direct path for itself, it is not irresistibly self-evident. A considerable time must elapse before a truth of the same order can take shape in them.
— Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, Part 2
Alice More: As for understanding, I understand that you are the best man that I ever met,  or am likely to;  And, if you go...Well, God knows why I suppose. Though as God's my witness God's kept deadly quiet about it!
— Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
You don't have to have sex to find a feeling of closeness and understanding. Lord knows I feel that way about you. Use that to shackle your hunger. Isn't that what love is?
— Kim Harrison, A Fistful of Charms
The most courageous act in politics is to try to understand your opponent.
— Alain de Botton
When they find what they don't like , they destroy it. Because it scares them-and you girls would scare them as much as anything they've ever seen.' 'Why?' asked Isobel. 'Because . . . because of what they believe.
— Gordon Dahlquist, The Different Girl
Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing, finding out about something and knowing what’s going on, our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered, they can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear, it’s always too late.
— Javier Marías, A Heart So White
Relationship is understanding. It is a process of self-revelation. Relationship is the mirror in which you discover yourself -- to be is to be related.
— Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Recognising our own mistakes helps us to empathise non-judgementally with others and helps enable us to understand their issues.
— Jay Woodman
If you want to be with somebody who gets you, you prefer collusion to desire, safety to excitement (sometimes good things to prefer but not always the things most wanted). The wish to be understood may be our most vengeful demand, may be the way we hang on, as adults, to the grudge against our mothers; the way we never let our mothers of the hook for their not meeting our every need. Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be, among many other things our most violent form of nostalgia.
— Adam Phillips, Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life
I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing.
— Lauren DeStefano, Sever
When you pray and hope for a change. Don't expect a change to come. Expect the opportunity for a change to come.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated: The Life Of A Boy Who Never Knew A Mother's Love
The most precious gift you can ever give to a young woman is, appreciating and understanding her true feelings
— M.F. Moonzajer
We must take the money out of politics, and end psychopathic, self-destructive government and corporate madness.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
We must rebuild organic communities, where people can come together and have analogue conversations and share stories, art, music and emotions.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
Some years ago I read a book that brought Einstein's theory of relativity down to an eighth grade level. This convinced me that any subject can be made easy. In other words, always beware of anyone who tells you a topic is above you or better left to experts. This person may, for some reason, be trying to shut you out. You CAN understand almost anything.
— Richard J. Maybury, Whatever Happened to Justice? Revised Edition
Some things are more than we can understand.
— Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away
The freest societies are in a constant state of revolution.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
Seek first to respectThen to understand
— Jo   Murphy, Global Citizens Creative Arts Text
? Life is all about relationships and what actually happens when people relate, when people understand each other. To see each other for who they are, not what we want or expect of them.” Margaret Bouchard
— Ted Magnuson, The Bouchard Legacy
Men were not supposed to be mushy, but one thing his mother taught him was that it was better to understand your feelings than hide from them
— A.J. Wiliams, Bounty's End
We must understand that out of community and dialogue, the answers will arrive in their own time and way.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
She stole my dreams. I wanted to show her I can survive and now that won't happen
— Sondra Torres
To understand yourself: Is that a discovery or a creation?
— Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon
depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.
— John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
I saw something I could never forget. I saw lifetimes of acknowledgement, fear, wisdom, questioning, and understanding in a child's eye. It was the worst thing I would ever witness.
— Shannon A. Thompson, November Snow
At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.
— Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
the underlying struggle - between worlds of plenty and worlds of want; between the modern and the ancient; between those who embrace our teeming, colliding, irksome diversity, while still insisting on a set of values that binds us together, and those who would seek, under whatever flag or slogan or sacred text, a certainty and simplification that justifies cruelty toward those not like us...
— Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
All I have learned in life really just boils down to this: there is only one difference between the so-called wise and the so-called foolish...and between those who are truly happy and those who are not. Those who are wise - and those who are happy - embrace and appreciate life. Those who are unhappy and unwise do not. That is all
—  that is the only difference.
The unexplainable thing in nature that makes me feel the world is big fat beyond my understanding – to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.
— Georgia O'Keeffe, Some Memories of Drawings
The simplest things are the hardest to understand.
— Kevin    Wilson, The Family Fang
When we look back, it becomes clear that the acts and accomplishments of human beings are the signatures of history. Human signatures have created an enormous chasm between the joyeous light of the age of the Renaissance to the dark shadow of September 11, 2001. Those of us living on that fateful day experienced the lower depths of mankind. As an author, avid reader, world traveler, and person of enormous curiosity, my life experiences have taught me that discord often erupts from a lack of knowledge and education. To discourage future dark moments, I believe we must nourish the minds of our young with learning that creates understanding between ethnic and religious groups. Perhaps understanding will lead to a marvelous day when we take a last fleeting look at violence so harmful to so many. I sincerely believe that nothing will further the cause of peace more than the education of our young. I would like for readers to know that a percentage of the profits from the sale of this book will be devoted to the cause of education.May all roads lead to peace.
— Jean Sasson, Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World
He showed the fineness of his nature by being kinder to me after that misunderstanding than before. Nay, the very incident which, by my theory, must in some degree estrange me and him, changed, indeed, somewhat our relations; but not in the sense I painfully anticipated. An invisible, but a cold something, very slight, very transparent, but very chill: a sort of screen of ice had hitherto, all through our two lives, glazed the medium through which we exchanged intercourse. Those few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution. I think from that day, so long as we continued friends, he never in discourse stood on topics of ceremony with me.
— Charlotte Brontë
... understanding, and action proceeding from understanding and guided by it, is the one weapon against the world's bombardment, the one medicine, the one instrument by which liberty, health, and joy may be shaped or shaped towards, in the individual, and in the race.
— James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
The Maestro spoke again. "When we are not, at what point do we become?" I could not reply. For I had grasped no shape of his thoughts. I understood neither what he said nor his intent behind it.
— Theresa Breslin, The Medici Seal
Most of life is a matter of nonessential differences.
— Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christlike Humility
Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
grappling with some small understanding of this place, this time, we're in" my poem "In a BishopsWood Clearing
— Jay Woodman, Following Father
Knowing me better than I think anyone shouldExcept, perhapsNo, probablyNo, definitelyDefinitely except you
— Thalia Circe
The only way is to teach with love, which requires looking beyond what seems, and remembering we create with our judgements.
— Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason
We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her.From time to time, sit close to the one you love, hold his or her hand, and ask, 'Darling, do I understand you enough? Or am I making you suffer? Please tell me so that I can learn to love you properly. I don't want to make you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance, please tell me so that I can love you better, so that you can be happy." If you say this in a voice that communicates your real openness to understand, the other person may cry.That is a good sign, because it means the door of understanding is opening and everything will be possible again. Maybe a father does not have time or is not brave enough to ask his son such a question. Then the love between them will not be as full as it could be. We need courage to ask these questions, but if we don't ask, the more we love, the more we may destroy the people we are trying to love. True love needs understanding. With understanding, the one we love will certainly flower.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.
— H. James Harrington
One doesn’t have to operate with great malice to do great harm. The absence of empathy and understanding are sufficient. In fact, a man convinced of his virtue even in the midst of his vice is the worst kind of man.
— Charles M. Blow
Faith is why I'm here today and faith is why I believe I can achieve something in my life.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated: The Life Of A Boy Who Never Knew A Mother's Love
Fang swerved closer to me, big and supremely graceful, like a black panther with wings. Oh, God. I'm so stupid. Forget I just said that. "He needs a Band-Aid," I said. A look passed between me and Fang, full of suppressed humor, relief, understanding,love — Forget I said that too. I don't know what's wrong with me.
— James Patterson, Max
If the cherry trees had to wait for understanding they'd never blossom.
— Marty Rubin
Misunderstanding must be nakedly exposed before true understanding can begin to flourish.
— Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read
I'm taking inorganic chem and physics not because I want to but because I have to. Not every doctor wants to be a scientist. Some of us just want to take care of sick people. I can't help thinking that medicine is more closely aligned to the humanities than to the sciences. I can't help thinking that I could learn more about being a good doctor from William Shakespeare than I could from Isaac Newton. After all, isn't understanding people at least as important as understanding pathology?
— Michael J. Collins, Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon
It may be necessary to stand on the outside of one is to see things clearly.
— Peter Høeg, Tales of the Night
And when wind and winter hardenAll the loveless land,It will whisper of the garden,You will understand.
— Oscar Wilde, Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
Humor is not an end in itself, but a tool to understanding. A dense head must be tickled with an ax.
— Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic
Often times, the greatest peace comes of surrender.
— Richard Paul Evans, Lost December
The journey is the mystery…the destination the answer. If you don’t have a happy ending yet, you have not finished reading the right book.
— Shannon L. Alder
You'll never know the the outcome unless you just go out there and just do it.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Neglected But Undefeated: The Life Of A Boy Who Never Knew A Mother's Love
Anyone can see that an ass laden with books remains a donkey. A human being laden with the undigested results of a tussle with thoughts and books, however, still passes for wise.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
He was no lover in a worldly sense; the only love he knew was that of divine understanding, of taking a whole life into its depths as if they were his own. From this, the greatest pain, the greatest happiness is born: the hope that we too will one day be understood, strangers will accept our words, our lives, as if they were their own.
— Dezső Kosztolányi, Skylark
Talent is the presence of ability and absence of understanding about the source and operation of knowledge.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
People are always trying to understand.There is only one way to do that.It is to discover < + i + >why< + i + > you want to understand.
— Idries Shah, Reflections
And the Buddha pointed out that his confusion was justified, for 'the dharma is profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, peaceful, excellent, beyond the sphere of logic, subtle, and to be understood by the wise'. The reason for this is that it is not readily comprehended by one who holds a different view and has different learnings and inclinations, different involvements and instruction. It is clear from this statement that the conception of nibbāna in beyond logical reasoning, not because it is an Ultimate Reality transcending logic, but because logic or reason, being the 'slave of passions', makes it difficult for one who has a passion for an alien tradition to understand the conception of nibbāna.
— David J. Kalupahana, Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
The key to understanding the answer to any questions about guidance is having a clear grasp of what is three-dimensional.
— Elaine Seiler, Your Multi-Dimensional Workbook: Exercises for Energetic Awakening
Love and translation look alike in their grammar. To love someone implies transforming their words into ours. Making an effort to understand the other person and, inevitably, to misinterpret them. To construct a precarious language together.
— Andrés Neuman
Stop worrying about being that perfect person because no one is perfect. Put your focus on being that right person that will love, understand, and care for that other.
— Jonathan Anthony Burkett, Friends 2 Lovers: The Unthinkable
And where," Socrates smiled, "is the universe?""The universe is well, there are theories about how it's shaped...""That's not what I asked. Where is it?""I don't know - how can I answer that?""That is the point. You cannot answer it, and you never will. There is no knowing about it. You are ignorant of where the universe is, and thus, where you are. In fact, you have no knowledge of where anything is or of What anything is or how is came to be. Life is a mystery."My ignorance is based on this understanding. Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass.
— Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
And verily, a woman need know but one man well, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them.
— Helen Rowland, A Guide to Men
In our evolution language has been the greatest single contribution to our understanding and misunderstanding
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
The greatest pleasure is not - say - sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity - well, that's the job of the writer.
— William Golding
If I had to create a god, I would lend him a “slow understanding”: a kind of drip-by-drip understanding of problems. People who understand quickly frighten me.
— Roland Barthes, The Neutral: Lecture Course at the Collège de France, 1977-1978
I think, actually, that none of us understands anyone else very well, because we're all too shy to show what matters the most. If you ask me, it's a major design flaw. We ought to be able to say, Here, look what I am. I think it would be quite a relief.
— Elizabeth Berg, True to Form
Understanding begets empathy and compassion even for the meanest beggar - Oromis
— Christopher Paolini, Eldest
Tread the path one has walked, before stoning them!
— Deeba Salim Irfan
Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself.
— Pearl S. Buck
Peace is a flawed logic. They believe that communication and understanding will create peace. However, just because you know and understand the nature of something or someone, does not mean that you will come to terms.
— Lionel Suggs
Not everyone has understanding, so everyone won't understand
— donwayne
I remember when we found the first population of living Cerion agassizi in central Eleuthera. Our hypothesis of Cerion's general pattern required that two predictions be affirmed (or else we were in trouble): this population must disappear by hybridization with mottled shells toward bank-interior coasts and with ribby snails toward the bank-edge. We hiked west toward the bank-interior and easily found hybrids right on the verge of the airport road. We then moved east toward the bank-edge along a disused road with vegetation rising to five feet in the center between the tire paths. We should have found our hybrids but we did not. The Cerion agassizi simply stopped about two hundred yards north of our first ribby Cerion. Then we realized that a pond lay just to our east and that ribby forms, with their coastal preferences, might not favor the western side of the pond. We forded the pond and found a classic hybrid zone between Cerion agassizi and ribby Cerions. (Ribby Cerion had just managed to round the south end of the pond, but had not moved sufficiently north along the west side to establish contact with C. agassizi populations.) I wanted to shout for joy. Then I thought, "But who can I tell; who cares?" And I answered myself, "I don't have to tell anyone. We have just seen and understood something that no one has ever seen and understood before. What more does a man need?
— Stephen Jay Gould, The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
Amatus waited a long time, but at last he broke the silence."There is much I don't unders
— John Barnes, One for the Morning Glory
That's all my grandfather was guilty of, fear, faith in his words, but that was a high crime in her eyes. That's all Jack was guilty of that day, but I've lived with him a good while and I believe I understand him. Sometimes it might take an afternoon or evening of being here in this kitchen alone, thinking, but I can usually come to see his reasons through his ways. And half the job of finding peace is finding understanding. Don't you believe it to be so?
— Kaye Gibbons, A Virtuous Woman
Understanding people’s difficulties and—just as crucial—helping people understand their own difficulties and teaching them concrete ways to help themselves will help them better deal with their own lives and, in turn, ours.
— Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird
We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.
— Scott Westerfeld, Uglies
I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open.
— Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life As We Knew It
I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.
— Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
He who controls the spice controls the universe.
— Frank Herbert, Dune
Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.
— Ray Bradbury
No, look, there's a blue box. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it's meant to go. And when it turns up, there's a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed 'cause he's awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch 'Blink'.
— Neil Gaiman
In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say 'I have been happy.
— Arthur C. Clarke, Rama II
The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
— Larry Niven, Ringworld
Are you afraid?""Yes.""Energy never stops, remember. It just changes forms.""I am still afraid.
— Amie Kaufman, Illuminae
There's the bullshit you know that you know
—  the bullshit you don't know and know you don't know
Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.
— Scott Westerfeld, Uglies
Madness, and then illumination.
— Orson Scott Card, Xenocide
I just saved your fucking life, Mom. . . . You could at least offer me an Oreo.
— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Madge: I don't know why I keep shouting at them.The Doctor: Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later. The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.~ The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe
— Steven Moffat
You mean old books?""Stories written before space travel but about space travel.""How could there have been stories about space travel before --""The writers," Pris said, "made it up.
— Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
— William S. Burroughs
One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy
— William Gibson
Spader and I were nearly killed. Three times. We were also robbed and witnessed a gruesome murder. Happy birthday to me!
— D.J. MacHale, The Never War
Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction -- its essence -- has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.
— Isaac Asimov
Even when the world throws it worst and then turns in its back, there is still always hope
— Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six
Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run.
— Robert A. Heinlein
The Snow White the midnight the moon tales of the mechanics
— Marissa Meyer, Winter
The Mogadorian caught Number One in Malaysia, Number Two in England, And Number Three in Kenya. I am Number Four. I am next..." - I AM NUMBER FOUR
— Pittacus Lore
One of the things I've always liked about science fiction is the way it makes you think about things, and look at things from angles you'd never have thought about before.
— Jo Walton, Among Others
Well we've moved through the funfair a bit - we've done the rollercoaster, now we're on the ghost train.
— Steven Moffat
Vampires are people too!
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Guilty Pleasures
No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
Most countries are static, all they need to do is keep having babies. But America's like this big old clanking smoking machine that just lumbers across the landscape scooping up and eating everything in sight.
— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void...
— William Gibson, Neuromancer
You might get only one shot. So shoot. You know who said that?"The rifle clatters to the bloody floor."Hanna FUCKING Donnelly. That's who.
— Jay Kristoff, Gemina
Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it really isn't about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
There are always possibilities.
— Jack B. Sowards, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan: Photostory
And [Asimov]'ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people's books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile — except that he signed: 'Harlan Ellison.
— Isaac Asimov, Murder at the ABA
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.
— William Gibson, Neuromancer
Science fiction is held in low regard as a branch of literature, and perhaps it deserves this critical contempt. But if we view it as a kind of sociology of the future, rather than as literature, science fiction has immense value as a mind-stretching force for the creation of the habit of anticipation. Our children should be studying Arthur C. Clarke, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Robert Sheckley, not because these writers can tell them about rocket ships and time machines but, more important, because they can lead young minds through an imaginative exploration of the jungle of political, social, psychological, and ethical issues that will confront these children as adults.
— Alvin Toffler, Future Shock
Resistance, however, is useless. (1939)
— A.E. van Vogt
You can dance. You can make me laugh.You've got x-ray eyes. You know how to sing. You're a diplomat. You've got it all. Everybody loves you. You can charm the birds out of the sky, But I, I've got one thing. You always know just what to say And when to go, But I've got one thing. You can see in the dark, But I've got one thing: I loved you better. Last night I woke up,Saw this angel. He flew in my window. And he said, Girl, pretty proud of yourself, huh?" And I looked around and said, Who me?" And he said, "The higher you fly, the faster you fall."He said, "Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's rainbow. Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's Angel.
— Laurie  Anderson
He turns off the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him
—  he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern.
Americans worship technology. It's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist.
— Max Brooks, World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
We walk in dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the One. -- the Ranger oath
— J. Michael Straczynski
Conceited little mega-puppy.
— Douglas Adams
In this universe the night was falling; the shadows were lengthening towards an east that would not know another dawn. But elsewhere the stars were still young and the light of morning lingered; and along the path he once had followed, Man would one day go again.
— Arthur C. Clarke
The longest and most destructive party ever held is now into its fourth generation and still no one shows any signs of leaving. Somebody did once look at his watch, but that was eleven years ago now, and there has been no follow up.
— Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
Bellamy had come down from scanning the heavens only to find himself in the depths of hell.
— Kass Morgan, The 100
A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
— Gene Roddenberry
We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.
— Amie Kaufman, Illuminae
BewareAt war Or at peace,More people die Of unenlightened self-interestThan of any other disease
— Octavia E. Butler
If privacy had a gravestone it might read: 'Don't Worry. This Was for Your Own Good.
— John Twelve Hawks, The Dark River
Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.
— Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
To the brave crew and passengers of the Kobayshi Maru…sucks to be you.
— Peter David, Stone and Anvil
Thomas jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows."You met our new friend?" Miho responded, a smirk flashing across his face. "Real piece of work, this guy. I gotta get me one of those shuck suits. Fancy stuff.""Am I awake?" Thomas asked."You're awake. Now eat—you look horrible. Almost as bad as Rat Man over there, reading his book.
— James Dashner, The Scorch Trials
How many roads must a man walk down?
— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
Two there shall be; no more, no less. One to embody the dark side, the other to crave it.
— Drew Karpyshyn, Path of Destruction
Well, I hate to admit it, but it is possible that there is (one) such a thing as telepathy and (two) that the CETI project's idea that we might communicate with extraterrestrial beings via telepathy is possibly a reasonable idea--if telepathy exists and if ETIs exist. Otherwise we are trying to communicate with someone who doesn't exist with a system which doesn't work.
— Philip K. Dick, The Dark-Haired Girl
She studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?" It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers--or any answer at all?
— Jim Butcher, Storm Front
With him I couldn’t be anything but myself and that scared the crap out of me, because I had never existed like that before.
— Carlyle Labuschagne, The Broken Destiny
I have been to the speed of God, sir...and I discommend it.
— John Ringo, A Hymn Before Battle
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
— Rutger Hauer, All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners
There is no endTo what a living worldWill demand of you.
— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
I was there, the day that Horus killed the Emperor
— Dan Abnett, Horus Rising
Nobody dares to solve the problems-because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.
— Michael Crichton, State of Fear
I walked into adventure and adventure has given me blisters.
— Andrea K. Höst, Stray
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled "science fiction" ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
I had been hobbled, perhaps even crippled by a pervasive internet society I had come to depend on and take for granted... hit enter and let Google, that twenty-first century Big Brother, take care of the rest.In the Derry of 1958, the most up-to-date computers were the size of small housing developments, and the local paper was no help. What did that leave? I remembered a sociology prof I’d had in college - a sarcastic old bastard - who used to say, When all else fails, give up and go to the library.
— Stephen King, 11/22/63
The thin girl was gulping down one of Richard's bananas in what was, Richard reflected, the least erotic display of banana-eating he had ever seen.
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
If you can’t change the world with chocolate chip cookies, how can you change the world?
— Pat Murphy
I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that the mind, like the author’s, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and itinspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness.
— Philip K. Dick, Paycheck and Other Classic Stories
Good Samaritans: Truth, justice and the American way–for them it wasn't only a comic book code; it was a way of life. it was admirable, courageous, and inconvenient as shit. -Stefan, CHIMERA
— Rob Thurman, Chimera
Since the war, we're the only intelligent species left in the universe, therefore we think everything in this universe has to conform to our paradigm of what makes sense. Do you have any idea how arrogant that view is and on how little of this universe we base it?
— Robert Buettner, Overkill
No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me.
— Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Leela: Why are we listening to them? It is a waste of time.The Doctor; It is difficult to know what will be a waste of time until after the time has been wasted, by which time it is too late. So predicting what will be a waste of time is something of a waste of time. Unless it gives you pleasure of course when it probably doesn't count as a waste of time.Leela (yawning): I am sorry I did not hear what you said, Doctor.The Doctor (smiling): That was a waste of time then.
— Chris Boucher, Doctor Who: Match of the Day
You can give me detention. Oh, wait, that's right...you aren't the boss of me. So I guess you can just bite me. -Dean
— Jeff Mariotte, Witch's Canyon
I take it you know my companion?"Oh,yes!" said Savage, his smile disappearing. "We know all about Ruby Journey. Please don't let her kill anyone important. Or set fire to anything."Your reputation precedes you," Random said dryly to Ruby.
— Simon R. Green, Deathstalker Honor
Case shuffled into the nearest door and watched the other passengers as he rode. A pair of predatory-looking Christian Scientists were edging toward a trio of young office techs who wore idealized holographic vaginas on their wrists, wet pink glittering under the harsh lighting. The techs licked their perfect lips nervously and eyed the Christian Scientists from beneath lowered metallic lids. The girls looked like tall, exotic grazing animals, swaying gracefully and unconsciously with the movement of the train, their high heels like polished hooves against the gray metal of the car’s floor. Before they could stampede, take flight from the missionaries, the train reached Case’s station.
— William Gibson, Neuromancer
Generalities are intellectually necessary evils.
— Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I just saved your fucking life, Mom...It's like, if you--people of a certain age--would make some effort to just stay in touch with sort of basic, modern-day events, then your kids wouldn't have to take these drastic measures.
— Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you assume we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes.
— David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?''The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.
— Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles
As a general rule, you won't find the love of your life while you're on your knees under a table." -- Helios Dayspring
— Belinda McBride, An Uncommon Whore
Never tell a computer to forget it.
— Larry Niven, A World Out of Time
Ever since I could remember, She was all that mattered.
— James J. Caterino, She
I never read to kill time. Killing time is like killing someone's wife or a child. There is nothing more precious for me than time.
— Stanisław Lem
The name Atlantis came from an old book Victoria had never read. A lifetime residency in the ASM paradise was rumored to cost anywhere from 15 to 20 million dollars. The rich and powerful lived under the dome because they considered themselves separate and superior. Few of them left the comfort and security of Atlantis. To them the outside world was weak. Second Sector citizens where miscreant dregs of a defunct society. In order to enter the Atlantian dome one first had to be cleared by a resident. Gate security personnel strictly enforced this rule, even when outsiders carried a badge and gun.
— Benjamin R.  Smith, Atlas
A whore is a whore is a whore.Except when he's something else completely.From the writings of King Helios Dayspring, High Priest of the Temple of the Sun
— Belinda McBride
... You have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.
— Pierce Brown, Red Rising
No, they can't. They can't be Luke Skywalker.
— Aaron Allston
Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off."He grinned sheepishly."That's ridiculous!" murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. "Check your watch." And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.
— Harlan Ellison, The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective
Fish and visitors stink after three days.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, City of Illusions
I saw the Earth, yes. I saw the colors so magnificent, so vivid, so real. It was hope so large and round, green and blue.
— Hafsah Laziaf, Unbreathable
When I began to do a little public speaking, one of the questions I heard most often was, "What good is science fiction to Black people?" I was usually asked this by a Black person...What good is science fiction's thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what "everyone" is saying, doing, thinking -- whoever "everyone" happens to be this year.And what good is all this to Black people?
— Octavia E. Butler
Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.
— Lois McMaster Bujold