You cannot do only one thing.

But it is no good using the tongs of reason to pull the Fundamentalists' chestnuts out of the fire of contradiction. Their real troubles lie elsewhere.

(Technology reliability) x (Human reliability) = (System reliability)

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable

People are the quintessential element in all technology... Once we recognize the inescapable human nexus of all technology our attitude toward the reliability problem is fundamentally changed.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.

Why are ecologists and environmentalists so feared and hated? This is because in part what they have to say is new to the general public, and the new is always alarming.

Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

The only thing we can really count on in this uncertain world is human unreliability itself.

Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution.

Greatness never comes from having power, but it embraces you when you empower.

Probably nothing, but it was one of those thoughts like toothpaste: Once it’s out, you can’t squeeze it back in.

The artist's conception of his art or the scientist's of his science is usually as great as his conception of his own worth is small.

My books have come many years apart and each one seems to reflect a period of experience. Ending the book is like putting a period on a certain movement. Interior and external - both.

In real life, Josh [Gad] is a different kind of lovable idiot. In real life, he's a much filthier idiot. He has a dirty sense of humor.

The Book of the science of Mechanics must precede the Book of useful inventions.

The greatest influence you can have in any situation is to be the presence of love.

God knows His own. It is well that He does, for sometimes it would be difficult for us to determine who are His!

I always invest in companies an idiot could run, because one day one will.

Our very eyes Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind.