I have found through trial and error that I work best under duress. In fact I work only under duress.
Phoenix, Arizona: an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland.
A journey into the wilderness is the freest, cheapest, most nonprivileged of pleasures. Anyone with two legs and the price of a pair of army surplus combat boots may enter.
Those who dream of the joys of living in a space colony should live in a space colony.
The basic science is not physics or mathematics but biology – the study of life. We must learn to think both logically and bio-logically.
Science transcends mere politics. As recent history demonstrates, scientists are as willing to work for a Tojo, a Hitler, or a Stalin as for the free nations of the West.
We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope.
Most academic economists know nothing of economy. In fact, they know little of anything.
When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town’s in trouble.
Of all the featherless beasts, only man, chained by his self-imposed slavery to the clock, denies the elemental fire and proceeds as best he can about his business, suffering quietly, martyr to his madness. Much to learn.
The very poor are strictly materialistic. It takes money to be a mystic.
The rich can buy everything but health, virtue, friendship, wit, good looks, love, pride, intelligence, grace, and, if you need it, happiness.
Balance, that’s the secret. Moderate extremism. The best of both worlds.
Quantum mechanics provides us with an approximate, plausible, conjectural explanation of what actually is, or was, or may be taking place inside a cyclotron during a dark night in February.
We spend more time working for our labor-saving machines than they do working for us.
The nuclear bomb took all the fun out of war.
In all of nature, there is no sound more pleasing than that of a hungry animal at its feed. Unless you are the food.
The hawk’s cry is as sharp as its beak.
Every man should be his own guru; every woman her own gurette.
Roosters: The cry of the male chicken is the most barbaric yawp in all of nature.