We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.
George OrwellBritish writer and journalist1903 - 1950
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Secker & Warburg.
My belief in free speech is so profound that I am seldom tempted to deny it to the other fellow. Nor do I make any effort to differentiate between the other fellow right and that other fellow wrong, for I am convinced that free speech is worth nothing unless it includes a full franchise to be foolish and even...malicious.
H. L. MenckenAmerican journalist and writer1880 - 1956
The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
Lord ByronEnglish Romantic poet and lyricist1788 - 1824
All of reality is nothing more than the arrangement of particles. Our physical and mental life must be made out of particles because there is nothing else.
In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way."
Carl SaganAmerican astrophysicist, cosmologist and author1934 - 1996
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space