The single definition of government I've ever seen that makes sense is that it's the organization which claims the right to kill people who won't do what it wants.

Anybody can find infinite Mandelbrot figures in his navel.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.

We live with our archetypes, but can we live in them?

A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.

Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.

A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.

He had seen too much of the cosmos to have any great faith in man's ability to understand it.

If we knew exactly what to expect throughout the Solar System, we would have no reason to explore it.

What five books would I like to be remembered for? Well... Tau Zero, I like that one especially. It was somewhat of a tour de force, and I think it got across what I was trying for.

There are some ideas so stupid that only intellectuals can believe in them, particularly left-wing intellectuals.

People always want the bad guy to pay for his sin, until they're him.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

The best things arrive on time.

A simple rule, to be followed whether one is in the light or not, gives backbone to one's spiritual life, as nothing else can.

Beware of preoccupying your heart with what it has not been created for.

I always think about the next generation and creating a different blueprint for them. That's my goal: to let them know there's another way.

Anything that's popular is a rear-view image.

Let go the things of which you are in doubt for the things in which there is no doubt.

He felt all at once like an ineffectual moth, fluttering at the windowpane of reality, dimly seeing it from outside.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.