“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.”

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.

A good engineer gets stale very fast if he doesn’t keep his hands dirty.

My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?

All one can really leave one’s children is what’s inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away.

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me-and continues to teach me-strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.

For me, the idea of a creation is not conceivable without invoking the necessity of design. One cannot be exposed to the law and order of the universe without concluding that there must be design and purpose behind it all.

Man is not made for space. But with the help of biologists and medical doctors, he can be prepared and accommodated.

I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.

It will free man from the remaining chains, the chains of gravity which still tie him to this planet.

For my confirmation, I didn’t get a watch and my first pair of long pants, like most Lutheran boys. I got a telescope. My mother thought it would make the best gift.

Man belongs wherever he wants to go – and he’ll do plenty well when he gets there.

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

I don’t want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of ‘Idiocracy’ and ‘Borat,’ without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture.

We need to block out the outside world; we need to disbelieve anything that would doubt us, because everyone will doubt us if we allow them that space.

When we are in our studios, in our private space.

Someday, I have no doubt, the dead from today’s wars will be seen with a similar sense of sorrow at needless loss and folly as those millions of men who lie in the cemeteries of France and Belgium

Do you live in a mine field or a garden? When we live in a minefield mentality, we explode with the weeds of worry, doubt, fear, lack and limitation. Choose to cultivate your inner garden!

When teachers doubt your potential, show them how wrong they truly are.

Welcome to a life of insecurity and paralyzing self-doubt.

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.