“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.’”

It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People say ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?

He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means “I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve”. It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.

My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn’t worth discussing.

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

While he lives, he must think; while he thinks, he must dream.

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.

I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.

There is no more desire to live past one’s time than to die before it.

If we only obey those rules that we think are just and reasonable, then no rule will stand, for there is no rule that some will not think is unjust and unreasonable.

When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.

The Earth should not be cut up into hundreds of different sections, each inhabited by a self-defined segment of humanity that considers its own welfare and its own “national security” to be paramount above all other consideration.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.

The tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.

I wish that I could say I was optimistic about the human race. I love us all, but we are so stupid and shortsighted that I wonder if we can lift our eyes to the world about us long enough not to commit suicide.

But I know also that still more interesting discoveries will be made that I have not the imagination to describe – and I am awaiting them, full of curiosity and enthusiasm.

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.

In the year 1657 I discovered very small living creatures in rain water.

The brain is the last and grandest biological frontier, the most complex thing we have yet discovered in our universe. It contains hundreds of billions of cells interlinked through trillions of connections. The brain boggles the mind.

When we’re awake in our bodies and sense, the world comes alive. Wisdom, creativity, and love are discovered as we relax and awaken through our bodies.

Scientists believe they may have discovered a primitive form of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. That primitive form of life? You guessed it, Frank Stallone.

It is worth noting that the notation facilitates discovery. This, in a most wonderful way, reduces the mind’s labour.

A big part of what I wanted to do with this character was go from when I was a boy and try and develop into a man, really try and play him as a man who is on this search, on a journey of personal, spiritual, political, social discovery.