H. G. Wells

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change.

He spares no resource in telling of his dead inventions... Bare verbs he rarely tolerates. He splits infinitives and fills them up with adverbial stuffing. He presses the passing colloquialism into his service. His vast paragraphis sweat and struggle; the

It [a new world order] needs only that the governments of Britain, the United States, France, Germany, and Russia should get together in order to set up an effective control of currency, credit, production, and distribution – that is to say, an effective ‘dictatorship of prosperity,’ for the whole world. The other sixty odd States would have to join in or accommodate themselves to the over-ruling decisions of these major Powers.

Things that would have made fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.

But I was too restless to watch long; I'm too Occidental for a long vigil. I could work at a problem for years, but to wait inactive for twenty-four hours - that's another matter.

The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast - is choice.

I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it.

Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.

The past is the beginning of the beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

No. I cannot expect you to believe it. Take it as a lie--or a prophecy. Say I dreamed it in the workshop. Consider I have been speculating upon the destinies of our race until I have hatched this fiction. Treat my assertion of its truth as a mere stroke of art to enhance its interest. And taking it as a story, what do you think of it?

No place is safe - no place is at peace. There is no place where a women and her daughter can hide and be at peace. The war comes through the air, bombs drop in the night. Quiet people go out in the morning, and see air-fleets passing overhead - dripping death - dripping death!

States organized for war will make war as surely as hens will lay eggs.

If only I had thought of a Kodak! I could have flashed that glimpse of the Under-world in a second, and examined it at leisure.

But there are times when the little cloud spreads, until it obscures the sky. And those times I look around at my fellow men and I am reminded of some likeness of the beast-people, and I feel as though the animal is surging up in them. And I know they are neither wholly animal nor holy man, but an unstable combination of both.

For after the Battle comes quiet.

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.

Books-bright windows in this life of ours, lit by the shining souls of men.

Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.

Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.