James Edwin Gunn Quotes & Sayings

Animals fight wars; flowers practice peace. — James Edwin Gunn

Riley asked himself why he had ever considered space travel romantic. "Because you are a romantic," his pedia said. — James Edwin Gunn

I, too, have had my revelation. I do not compare it with yours. It has no identifiable source. It is an inner conviction that has grown from a small thought to a large certainty that there is other life in the universe, that to prove its existence is the most gloriously human thing man can do, that to communicate with it would make this vast, incomprehensible place in which man lives, this unexplored forest of the night, a friendlier, happier, more wonderful, more exciting, holier place in which to be. — James Edwin Gunn

Poverty and injustice are evils, but they are endurable evils in a world where other problems are greater. They are not endurable in a complex, technological society where cooperation is essential, where violence and rioting can destroy a city, even civilization itself. — James Edwin Gunn

He thought how wonderful it would be if he could take off his shoes and walk barefooted in the grass the way he used to do in the park when he was a boy. What a fine picture that would be - the President walking barefooted on the White House lawn - and he knew if he did it the picture would be reproduced in one hundred million homes across the nation and the world and it would win him votes. The people liked to think of the President being a bit impulsive when it came to matters of the heart, a bit comic in domestic affairs, a bit inferior to each of them in some way.... — James Edwin Gunn

A man is what a man is; he recognises his deficiencies and tries to conquer them or plans around them. — James Edwin Gunn

Don't get so holy, Pearce. Life isn't holy. — James Edwin Gunn

Logic is our assurance," MacDonald said calmly. "The only thing worth sending from star to star is information, and the certain profit from such an exchange far outweighs the uncertain advantage from any other kind of behavior. The first benefit is the knowledge of other intelligent creatures in the universe - this alone gives us strength and courage. Then comes information from an alien world; it is like having our own instruments there, even our own scientists, to measure and record, only with the additional advantage of a breadth and duration of measurements under a variety of conditions. Finally comes the cultural and scientific knowledge and development of another race, and the treasure to be gained from this kind of exchange is beyond calculation. — James Edwin Gunn

We must have tranquillity." "In a technological world," MacDonald said, "change is inevitable. What you must have for tranquillity is reasonable change, manageable change. — James Edwin Gunn

Do they think the same way we think - in terms of advantage and disadvantage, in terms of profit and loss, in terms of victory and defeat, in terms of what's in it for me?" MacDonald looked at White much, White thought, as he had been looking at the picture. He shook his head. "They seem very peaceful to me. All of us don't think in terms of advantage, of conflict. Increasingly, I think we become more uncompetitive. And birds always have been a symbol of peace. — James Edwin Gunn

The important task of government, you see, is to keep conditions stable, to hold down disturbances and unrest, to maintain itself, and the best way to do that is to give everybody the opportunity to do what they want - except change things. — James Edwin Gunn

Fuck the passengers! — James Edwin Gunn

Everyone is his or her own messiah. — James Edwin Gunn

If they succeed, it will not matter if Man becomes immortal.
He will have nothing to live for. — James Edwin Gunn

The lies we tell about ourselves may be more revealing than the truths we incautiously reveal. — James Edwin Gunn

In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like a dust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. We scan the time scale and the mechanisms of life itself for portents and signs of the invisible. As the only thinking mammals on the planet - perhaps the only thinking animals in the entire sidereal universe - the burden of consciousness has grown heavy upon us. We watch the stars, but the signs are uncertain. We uncover the bones of the past and seek for our origins. There is a path there, but it appears to wander. The vagaries of the road may have a meaning, however; it is thus we torture ourselves.... Loren Eiseley, 1946... — James Edwin Gunn