“It takes sixty-five thousand errors before you are qualified to make a rocket.”

I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science.

I believe in an immortal soul. Science has proved that nothing disintegrates into nothingness. Life and soul, therefore, cannot disintegrate into nothingness, and so are immortal.

The greatest gain from space travel consists in the extension of our knowledge. In a hundred years this newly won knowledge will pay huge and unexpected dividends.

If we were to start today on an organized and well-supported space program I believe a practical passenger rocket can be built and tested within ten years.

I’m convinced that before the year 2000 is over, the first child will have been born on the moon.

I believe that the time has arrived for medical investigation of the problems of manned rocket flight, for it will not be the engineering problems but rather the limits of the human frame that will make the final decision as to whether manned space flight will eventually become a reality.

With our present knowledge, we can respond to the challenge of stellar space flight solely with intellectual concepts and purely hypothetical analysis. Hardware solutions are still entirely beyond our reach and far, far away.

My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I’d like to ask you, don’t hang up your dancing slippers.

I only hope that we shall not wait to adopt the program until after our astronomers have reported a new and unsuspected asteroid moving across their fields of vision with menacing speed. At that point it will be too late!

One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.

By the year 2000 we will undoubtedly have a sizable operation on the Moon, we will have achieved a manned Mars landing and it’s entirely possible we will have flown with men to the outer planets.

If we continue at this leisurly pace, we will have to pass Russian customs when we land on the moon.

Basic research is what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing.

Conquering the universe one has to solve two problems: gravity and red tape. We could have mastered gravity.

The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet.

Our sun is one of a 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living thing in that enormous immensity.

Choices will continually be necessary and — let us not forget — possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.

Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.

To live life is to make a succession of errors. Understanding this can bring us great ease and forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Science progresses not by convincing the adherents of old theories that they are wrong, but by allowing enough time to pass so that a new generation can arise unencumbered by the old errors.

It is important that we forgive ourselves for making mistakes. We need to learn from our errors and move on.

The errors which arise from the absence of facts are far more numerous and more durable than those which result from unsound reasoning respecting true data.

Errors using inadequate data are much less than those using no data at all.

For my part, I would say that the male sperm and seeds of plants have been penetrated so far that there is nothing further to discover in this great secret, but I could err in my opinion.