On Literature: On Ideas (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea." (Victor Hugo, "The History of a Crime", 1851–1852)

"Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions." (Oliver W Holmes, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table", 1891)

"The more elevated a culture, the richer its language. The number of words and their combinations depends directly on a sum of conceptions and ideas; without the latter there can be no understandings, no definitions, and, as a result, no reason to enrich a language." (Anton Chekhov, [letter to A.S. Suvorin] 1892)

"If you don’t stop this senseless theorizing upon something that’s an obvious impossibility, you’ll find yourself working alone! Your ridiculous ideas sound like the ravings of a madman. Anyone with average intelligence realizes that the mere thought of traveling through time is absurd." (L Arthur Eshbach, "Out of the Past", Tales of Wonder, 1938)

'Of all the fantastic ideas that belong to science fiction, the most remarkable - and, perhaps, the most fascinating - is that of time travel [...] Indeed, so fantastic a notion does it seem, and so many apparently obvious absurdities and bewildering paradoxes does it present, that some of the most imaginative students of science refuse to consider it as a practical proposition." (Idrisyn O Evans, "Can We Conquer Time?", Tales of Wonder, 1940) 

"We’re free out here, really free for the first time. We’re floating, literally. Gravity can’t bow our backs or break our arches or tame our ideas. You know, it’s only out here that stupid people like us can really think. The weightlessness gets our thoughts and we can sort them. Ideas grow out here like nowhere else - it’s the right environment for them. Anyone can get into space, if he wants to hard enough. The ticket is a dream." (Fritz Leiber," The Beat Cluster", 1961)

"It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible." (Arthur C Clarke, "Profiles of the Future", 1962)

"Science fiction is, very strictly and literally, analogous to science facts. It is a convenient analog system for thinking about new scientific, social, and economic ideas - and for re-examining old ideas." (John W Campbell Jr., "Prologue to Analog", 1962)

"You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into The Twilight Zone." (Rod Serling, "The Twilight Zone", [opening narration] 1963)

"Well it's a matter of continuity. Most people's lives have ups and downs that are gradual, a sinuous curve with first derivatives at every point. They're the ones who never get struck by lightning. No real idea of cataclysm at all. But the ones who do get hit experience a singular point. a discontinuity in the curve of life - do you know what the time rate of change is at a cusp? Infinity, that's what! A-and right across the point, it's minus infinity! How's that for sudden change, eh?" (Thomas Pynehon, "Gravity's Rainbow", 1973)

"The idea of making machines that think has an unfailing fascination, not only for science fiction readers, but for all who can see it is a possible way of gaining some understanding of the working of our own minds. Thinking, however, is not an easily defined phenomenon, although it is often considered to be the process of solving problems." (Edward Ihnatowicz, "The Relevance of Manipulation to the Process of Perception", 1977)

"In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. I see the relative absence of these things and the distortions of scientific thinking often encountered in science fiction as terrible wasted opportunities. Real science is as amenable to exciting and engrossing fiction as fake science, and I think it is important to exploit every opportunity to convey scientific ideas in a civilization which is both based upon science and does almost nothing to ensure that science is understood." (Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", 1979)

"Thought is a matrix which engenders its own reality. The ideas, concepts, belief-systems that your ancestors trapped have become your trap." (Alfred A Attanasio, "Radix", 1981)

"In every language, from Arabic to Zulu to calligraphy to shorthand to math to music to art to wrought stone, everything from the Unified Field Theory to a curse to a sixpenny nail to an orbiting satellite, anything expressed is a net around some idea." (Richard Bach, "One", 1988)

"The world isn’t fair, the universe isn’t fair. Physics, chemistry and mathematics, they aren’t fair. Or unfair, for that matter. Fairness is an idea, and  only conscious creatures have ideas. That’s us. We have ideas about right and wrong. We invent the idea of justice so that we can judge whether something is good or bad. We develop morality. We create rules to live by and call them laws, all to make life more fair." (Iain M Banks, "The Business", 1999)

"The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." (Malcolm T Gladwell, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference", 2000)

"This possibility of sudden change is at the center of the idea of the Tipping Point and might well be the hardest of all to accept. [...] The Tipping Point is the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." (Malcolm T Gladwell, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference", 2000)

"To describe how quantum theory shapes time and space, it is helpful to introduce the idea of imaginary time. Imaginary time sounds like something from science fiction, but it is a well-defined mathematical concept: time measured in what are called imaginary numbers. […] Imaginary numbers can then be represented as corresponding to positions on a vertical line: zero is again in the middle, positive imaginary numbers plotted upward, and negative imaginary numbers plotted downward. Thus imaginary numbers can be thought of as a new kind of number at right angles to ordinary real numbers. Because they are a mathematical construct, they don't need a physical realization […]" (Stephen W Hawking, "The Universe in a Nutshell", 2001)

"Science fiction these days is only half a step ahead of science. Astrophysicists and scientists are working in the same way as science fiction writers. They’re working things out in their imagination based on the slim scientific facts that they know. Hawking imagines a black hole and then discovers the mathematics that support his theory, and new possibilities come to light. That’s the imaginative flair that scientists have to have. For me as a sci-fi writer, spinning those ideas in your mind brings you to the point where you dream in science fiction. Suddenly you think of something in the middle of the night, and it’s so vivid you don’t need to write it down because you know you’ll remember it in the morning. That’s what these books, Zero G, reflect: a vivid imagination." (William Shatner, "William Shtner on Sci-Fi, Aging and the Environment", Saturday Evening Post, [interview] 2017)

"All the ideas in the universe can be described by words. Therefore, if you simply take all the words and rearrange them randomly enough times, you’re bound to hit upon at least a few great ideas eventually."  (Jarod Kintz, "The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over", 2011)

On Literature: On Images (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. Have I the time to become indignant? You have already changed theories. So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art." (Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus", 1942)

"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against." (Ray Bradbury, "Fahrenheit 451", 1954

"The broken image of Man moves in minute by minute and cell by cell  [...] Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus. The Human Virus can now be isolated and treated." (William S Burroughs, "Naked Lunch", 1959)

"We are not lords of the universe. We’re one small part of it. We may be its consciousness, but being the consciousness of the universe does not mean turning it all into a mirror image of us. It means rather fitting into it as it is, and worshiping it with our attention." (Kim S Robinson, "Red Mars", 1992)

On Literature: On Matter (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"There is, though I do not know how there is or why there is, a sense of infinite peace and protection in the glittering hosts of heaven. There it must be, I think, in the vast and eternal laws of matter, and not in the daily cares and sins and troubles of men, that whatever is more than animal within us must find its solace and its hope." (Herbert G Wells, "The Island of Doctor Moreau", 1896)

"The world was held in a savage gloom - cold and intolerable. Outside, all was quiet - quiet! From the dark room behind me, came the occasional, soft thud of falling matter - fragments of rotting stone. So time passed, and night grasped the world, wrapping it in wrappings of impenetrable blackness." (William H Hodgson, "The House on the Borderland", 1908)

"I have often wondered if the majority of mankind ever pause to reflect upon the occasionally titanic significance of dreams, and of the obscure world to which they belong. [...] We may guess that in dreams life, matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things, are not necessarily constant; and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend them. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon." (H P Lovecraft, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep", 1919)

"Thought itself is a disease of the brain, a degenerative condition of matter. [...] The mind defends itself against the disintegrative process of creativity. It begins to jell, notions solidify into inalterable systems, which simply refuse to be broken down and reformed." (Thomas M Disch, "Camp Concentration", 1968)

"The universe is full of matter and force. Yet in all that force, amongst all the bulks and gravities, the rains of cosmic light, the bombardment of energy - how little spirit, how small the decimal points of intelligence." (Ray Bradbury et al, "Mars and the Mind of Man", 1973)

"Well it's a matter of continuity. Most people's lives have ups and downs that are gradual, a sinuous curve with first derivatives at every point. They're the ones who never get struck by lightning. No real idea of cataclysm at all. But the ones who do get hit experience a singular point. a discontinuity in the curve of life - do you know what the time rate of change is at a cusp? Infinity, that's what! A-and right across the point, it's minus infinity! How's that for sudden change, eh?" (Thomas Pynehon, "Gravity's Rainbow", 1973)

"A continuity exists between inert matter, through the grand design of the early universe, and intelligent life today. Now accepted by all, this cosmic perspective may be seen as a culmination of all the ancient religions." (Gregory Benford, "Starswarmer", 1978)

"Webriding. Flowing through stars, points of flame running through hands that aren’t hands, the psychic You bound up in the physical You that’s just a pattern sliding along the web, held together and existing only by the strength of will of the webrider. Sailing on evanescent wings of mind through the energy/matter currents of space." (Jayge Carr, "Webrider", 1985)

"The world isn’t fair, the universe isn’t fair. Physics, chemistry and mathematics, they aren’t fair. Or unfair, for that matter. Fairness is an idea, and  only conscious creatures have ideas. That’s us. We have ideas about right and wrong. We invent the idea of justice so that we can judge whether something is good or bad. We develop morality. We create rules to live by and call them laws, all to make life more fair." (Iain M Banks, "The Business", 1999)

"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest." (Marc S Zicree, "Survivors" [episode of Babylon 5], 1994)

"Out of twinkling stardust all came, into dark matter all will fall. Death mocks us as we laugh defiance at entropy, yet ignorance birthed mortals sail forth upon time’s cruel sea." (Peter F Hamilton, "The Temporal Void", 2008)

On Literature: On Wisdom (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole-the science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it." (Lev N Tolstoy, "War and Peace', 1867)

"Oh, great, divinely bounding wisdom of walls and barriers! They are, perhaps, the greatest of man’s inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he built the first wall." (Yevgeny Zamiatin, "We", 1924) 

"He was doomed, like millions, to flee from wisdom and be a hero." (James Hilton, "Lost Horizon", 1933)

"Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom." (Havelock Ellis, Impressions & Comments, 1930)

"Too much wisdom is a bad thing. It makes one cynical, overcautious, backward-looking." (Malcolm Jameson, "Pride", 1942)

"Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism." (Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop", 1944)

"There is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reason on the unforeseen." (Gilbert K Chesterton, "The Father Brown omnibus", 1951)

"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." (J R R Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring", 1954)

"A desire not to butt into other people’s business is eighty percent of all human wisdom." (Robert A. Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land", 1961)

"Goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil." (Robert A Heinlein, "Stranger in a Strange Land", 1961)

"Sometimes one must try anything, he decided. It is no disgrace. On the contrary, it is a sign of wisdom, of recognizing the situation." (Philip K Dick, "The Man in the High Castle", 1962)

"Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert." (Frank Herbert, "Dune", 1965)

"These dwarfs amass knowledge as others do treasure; for this reason they are called Hoarders of the Absolute. Their wisdom lies in the fact that they collect knowledge but never use it." (Stanislaw Lem, "How Erg the Self-Inducing Slew a Paleface", 1965)

"If everything, everything were known, statistical estimates would be unnecessary. The science of probability gives mathematical expression to our ignorance, not to our wisdom." (Samuel R Delany, "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones", 1969)

"Age does not bring wisdom. Often it merely changes simple stupidity into arrogant conceit." (Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love", 1973)

"The god is most fond of small children and the aged. Small boys and girls have innocence. Old people have tranquillity and wisdom. These are the things that are pleasing to the god. We should strive without effort to retain innocence, and to attain tranquillity and wisdom as soon as we can." (Gene Wolfe, "The Eyeflash Miracles", 1976)

"We take foul medicines to improve our health; so we must entertain foul thoughts on occasion, to strengthen wisdom." (Brian W Aldiss, "The Small Stones of Tu Fu", 1978)

"There is a time to battle against Nature, and a time to obey her. True wisdom lies in making the right choice." (Arthur C Clarke, "The Fountains of Paradise", 1979)

"For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration. The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide." (Carl Sagan, "Contact", 1985)

"Seeing, contrary to popular wisdom, isn’t believing. It’s where belief stops, because it isn’t needed any more." (Terry Pratchett, "Pyramids", 1989)

"What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn't lead to wisdom? And what's wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?" (Iain Banks, "Use of Weapons", 1990)

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end." (Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", [film] 1992)

On Energy (-1849)

"Numbers are the sources of form and energy in the world. They are dynamic and active even among themselves […] almost human in their capacity for mutual influence." (Theon of Symyma, "Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato" ["Expositio rerum mathematicarum ad legendum Platonem utilem", cca. 100–130)

"The principles of all knowledge are founded in mind; the mind of man, either animated by desire or pressed by necessity, puts in action it’s various energies, and unfolds the seeds of knowledge." (George Adams, "Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy" Vol. 3, 1794)

"But, as the universe is an extremely complex machine; the arrangement of the various parts of which it is composed, its preservation, and the play and energy of its springs, depend on an infinite number of general as well as particular laws. The most general admit of no exception. The exceptions attach on the detail; their number increases in proportion as the laws are specrfſed and particularized, and thus become more and more limited and restricted by other laws. Hence the exceptions themselves iorm new laws and means employed for a higher end. Apparent disorder in the parts is thus absorbed in the order of the whole, and the small defects gradually vanish in the eye of the philosopher as he proceeds to view nature on a more extended scale." (Johann H Lambert, "The System of the World", 1800)

"In the present state of our knowledge, it would be useless to attempt to speculate on the remote cause of the electrical energy [...] its relation to chemical affinity is, however, sufficiently evident. May it not be identical with it, and an essential property of matter?" (Humphry Davy, "Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide", 1800)

"The imagination […] that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in images of the sense and organizing (as it were) the flux of the senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths of which they are the conductors." (Samuel T Coleridge, "The Statesman's Manual", 1816)

"For truth is simple and without fuss, whereas error affords opportunity for dissipating time and energy." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1829)

"There seems to me to be something analogous to polarized intensity in the pure imaginary part; and to unpolarized energy" (indifferent to direction) in the real part of a quaternion: and thus we have some slight glimpse of a future Calculus of Polarities. This is certainly very vague […]" (Sir William R Hamilton,"On Quaternions; or on a new System of Imaginaries in Algebra", 1844)

"I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common I believe with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action." (Michael Faraday, "On the Magnetization of Light and the Illumination of Magnetic Lines of Force", [Paper read to the Royal Institution] 1845)

On Energy (1850-1874)

"The law of the conservation of energy is already known, viz. that the sum of the actual and potential energies in the universe is unchangeable." (William J M Rankine, "On the General Law of the Transformation of Energy", Philosophical Magazine, 1853)

"Modern civilisation rests upon physical science; take away her gifts to our own country, and our position among the leading nations of the world is gone tomorrow; for it is physical science only that makes intelligence and moral energy stronger than brute force." (Julian Huxley, "A Lobster; or, The Study of Zoology", 1861)

"The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves, - magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude, - asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and florae and faunae melt in air, - the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy, - the manifestations of life, as well as the display of phenomena, are but the modulations of its rhythm." (John Tyndall, [Conclusion to lecture 12] 1862) 

"The total quantity of all the forces capable of work in the whole universe remains eternal and unchanged throughout all their changes. All change in nature amounts to this, that force can change its form and locality, without its quantity being changed. The universe possesses, once for all, a store of force which is not altered by any change of phenomena, can neither be increased nor diminished, and which maintains any change which takes place on it." (Hermann von Helmholtz, "The Conservation of Energy, from a Lecture", 1863) 

"To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy - the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena - are but the modulations of its rhythm." (John Tyndall, "Conclusion of Heat Considered as a Mode of Motion: Being a Course of Twelve Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the Season of 1862", 1863)

"[…] the quantities of heat which must be imparted to, or withdrawn from a changeable body are not the same, when these changes occur in a non-reversible manner, as they are when the same changes occur reversibly. In the second place, with each non-reversible change is associated an uncompensated transformation […] I propose to call the magnitude S the entropy of the body […] I have intentionally formed the word entropy so as to be as similar as possible to the word energy […]" (Rudolf Clausius, "The Mechanical Theory of Heat", 1867)

"If for the entire universe we conceive the same magnitude to be determined, consistently and with due regard to all circumstances, which for a single body I have called entropy, and if at the same time we introduce the other and simpler conception of energy, we may express in the following manner the fundamental laws of the universe which correspond to the two fundamental theorems of the mechanical theory of heat. 1. The energy of the universe is constant. 2. The entropy of the universe tends to a maximum." (Rudolf Clausius, "The Mechanical Theory of Heat - With its Applications to the Steam Engine and to Physical Properties of Bodies", 1867)

"The second fundamental theorem [the second law of thermodynamics], in the form which I have given to it, asserts that all transformations occurring in nature may take place in a certain direction, which I have assumed as positive, by themselves, that is, without compensation […] the entire condition of the universe must always continue to change in that first direction, and the universe must consequently approach incessantly a limiting condition. […] For every body two magnitudes have thereby presented themselves - the transformation value of its thermal content [the amount of inputted energy that is converted to 'work'], and its disgregation [separation or disintegration]; the sum of which constitutes its entropy." (Rudolf Clausius, "The Mechanical Theory of Heat", 1867)

"Any opinion as to the form in which the energy of gravitation exists in space is of great importance, and whoever can make his opinion probable will have, made an enormous stride in physical speculation. The apparent universality of gravitation, and the equality of its effects on matter of all kinds are most remarkable facts, hitherto without exception; but they are purely experimental facts, liable to be corrected by a single observed exception. We cannot conceive of matter with negative inertia or mass; but we see no way of accounting for the proportionality of gravitation to mass by any legitimate method of demonstration. If we can see the tails of comets fly off in the direction opposed to the sun with an accelerated velocity, and if we believe these tails to be matter and not optical illusions or mere tracks of vibrating disturbance, then we must admit a force in that direction, and we may establish that it is caused by the sun if it always depends upon his position and distance." (James C Maxwell, [Letter to William Huggins] 1868)

"The whole science of heat is founded Thermometry and Calorimetry, and when these operations are understood we may proceed to the third step, which is the investigation of those relations between the thermal and the mechanical properties of substances which form the subject of Thermodynamics. The whole of this part of the subject depends on the consideration of the Intrinsic Energy of a system of bodies, as depending on the temperature and physical state, as well as the form, motion, and relative position of these bodies. Of this energy, however, only a part is available for the purpose of producing mechanical work, and though the energy itself is indestructible, the available part is liable to diminution by the action of certain natural processes, such as conduction and radiation of heat, friction, and viscosity. These processes, by which energy is rendered unavailable as a source of work, are classed together under the name of the Dissipation of Energy. " (James C Maxwell, "Theory of Heat", 1871)

"It is difficult, however, for the mind which has once recognised the analogy between the phenomena of self-induction and those of the motion of material bodies, to abandon altogether the help of this analogy, or to admit that it is entirely superficial and misleading. The fundamental dynamical idea of matter, as capable by its motion of becoming the recipient of momentum and of energy, is so interwoven with our forms of thought that, when ever we catch a glimpse of it in any part of nature, we feel that a path is before us leading, sooner or later, to the complete understanding of the subject." (James C Maxwell, "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" Vol. II, 1873)

"In our day grand generalizations have been reached. The theory of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of still wider grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues of which are as yet but dimly seem-that doctrine which “binds nature fast in fate” to an extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from every antecedent its equivalent consequent, and bringing vital as well as physical phenomena under the dominion of that law of causal connexion which, so far as the human understanding has yet pierced, asserts itself everywhere in nature." (John Tyndall, [Address Delivered Before The British Association Assembled at Belfast] 1874) 

On Energy (1910-1919)

"Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the penultimate state might be the millennium - in other words a state in which a minimum of difference of energy - level might have its exchanges so skillfully canalises that a maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result." (William James, [Letter to Henry Adams] 1910)

"The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are, however, not solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first in order [...] in the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the race." (Frederick Soddy, "Matter and Energy", 1912)

"What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason." (Ralph W Emerson, "Miscellanies, Natural history of intellect", 1912)

"For thought raised on specialization the most potent objection to the possibility of a universal organizational science is precisely its universality. Is it ever possible that the same laws be applicable to the combination of astronomic worlds and those of biological cells, of living people and the waves of the ether, of scientific ideas and quanta of energy? [...] Mathematics provide a resolute and irrefutable answer: yes, it is undoubtedly possible, for such is indeed the case. Two and two homogenous separate elements amount to four such elements, be they astronomic systems or mental images, electrons or workers; numerical structures are indifferent to any element, there is no place here for specificity." (Alexander Bogdanov, "Tektology: The Universal Organizational Science" Vol. I, 1913)

"There is no force inherent in living matter, no vital force independent of and differing from the cosmic forces; the energy which living matter gives off is counterbalanced by the energy which it receives." (William T Councilman, "Disease and its Causes", 1913

"The miracles of religion are to be discredited, not because we cannot conceive of them, but because they run counter to all the rest of our knowledge; while the mysteries of science, such as chemical affinity, the conservation of energy, the indivisibility of the atom, the change of the non-living into the living […] extend the boundaries of our knowledge, though the modus operandi of the changes remains hidden." (John Burroughs, "Scientific Faith", The Atlantic Monthly, 1915)

"There is a conservation of matter and of energy, there may be a conservation of life; or if not of life, of something which transcends life." (Oliver J Lodge, "Christopher: A Study in Human Personality", 1918)

"If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History." (Henry Adams, "The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma", 1919)

"There is a conservation of matter and of energy, there may be a conservation of life; or if not of life, of something which transcends life." (Oliver J Lodge, "Christopher: A Study in Human Personality", 1918)

On Energy (1940-1949)

"Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action.," (Sigmund Freud, "New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis", 1932)

"True equilibria can occur only in closed systems and that, in open systems, disequilibria called ‘steady states’, or ‘flow equilibria’ are the predominant and characteristic feature. According to the second law of thermodynamics a closed system must eventually attain a time-independent equilibrium state, with maximum entropy and minimum free energy. An open system may, under certain conditions, attain a time-independent state where the system remains constant as a whole and in its phases, though there is a continuous flow of component materials. This is called a steady state. Steady states are irreversible as a whole. […] A closed system in equilibrium does not need energy for its preservation, nor can energy be obtained from it. In order to perform work, a system must be in disequilibrium, tending toward equilibrium and maintaining a steady state, Therefore the character of an open system is the necessary condition for the continuous working capacity of the organism." (Ludwig on Bertalanffy, "Theoretische Biologie: Band 1: Allgemeine Theorie, Physikochemie, Aufbau und Entwicklung des Organismus", 1932)

"A state of equilibrium in a system does not mean, further, that the system is without tension. Systems can, on the contrary, also come to equilibrium in a state of tension" (e.g., a spring under tension or a container with gas under pressure).The occurrence of this sort of system, however, presupposes a certain firmness of boundaries and actual segregation of the system from its environment" (both of these in a functional, not a spatial, sense). If the different parts of the system are insufficiently cohesive to withstand the forces working toward displacement" (i.e., if the system shows insufficient internal firmness, if it is fluid), or if the system is not segregated from its environment by sufficiently firm walls but is open to its neighboring systems, stationary tensions cannot occur. Instead, there occurs a process in the direction of the forces, which encroaches upon the neighboring regions with diffusion of energy and which goes in the direction of an equilibrium at a lower level of tension in the total region. The presupposition for the existence of a stationary state of tension is thus a certain firmness of the system in question, whether this be its own inner firmness or the firmness of its walls." (Kurt Lewin, "A Dynamic Theory of Personality", 1935)

"Essential for any conception of the cell is that it is no static system. It is dynamic. It is energy-cycles, suites of oxidation and reduction, concatenated ferment-actions. It is like a magic hive the walls of whose chambered spongework are shifting veils of ordered molecules, and rend and renew as operations rise and cease. A world of surfaces and streams." (Sir Charles Sherrington, "Man on His Nature", 1940)

"Purposeful active behavior may be subdivided into two classes: ‘feed-back’" (or ‘teleological’) and ‘non-feed-back’" (or ‘non-teleological’). The expression feed-back is used by engineers in two different senses. In a broad sense it may denote that some of the output energy of an apparatus or machine is returned as input; an example is an electrical amplifier with feed-back. The feed-back is in these cases positive - the fraction of the output which reenters the object has the same sign as the original input signal. Positive feed-back adds to the input signals, it does not correct them. The term feed-back is also employed in a more restricted sense to signify that the behavior of an object is controlled by the margin of error at which the object stands at a given time with reference to a relatively specific goal. The feed-back is then negative, that is, the signals from the goal are used to restrict outputs which would otherwise go beyond the goal. It is this second meaning of the term feed-back that is used here." (Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener & Julian Bigelow, "Behavior, Purpose and Technology", Philosophy of Science Vol. 10" (1), 1943)

"It seems significant that according to quantum physics the indestructibility of energy on one hand - which expresses its timeless existence - and the appearance of energy in space and time on the other hand correspond to two contradictory" (complementary) aspects of reality. In fact, both are always present, but in individual cases the one or the other may be more pronounced." (Wolfgang Pauli, Moderne Beispiele zur Hintergrundsphysik" ["Modern Examples of Background Physics", 1948)

"In classical physics, most of the fundamental laws of nature were concerned either with the stability of certain configurations of bodies, e.g. the solar system, or else with the conservation of certain properties of matter, e.g. mass, energy, angular momentum or spin. The outstanding exception was the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics, discovered by Clausius in 1850. This law, as usually stated, refers to an abstract concept called entropy, which for any enclosed or thermally isolated system tends to increase continually with lapse of time. In practice, the most familiar example of this law occurs when two bodies are in contact: in general, heat tends to flow from the hotter body to the cooler. Thus, while the First Law of Thermodynamics, viz. the conservation of energy, is concerned only with time as mere duration, the Second Law involves the idea of trend." (Gerald J Whitrow, "The Structure of the Universe: An Introduction to Cosmology", 1949)

"Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth." (Joseph Campbell, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", 1949

Terry Pratchett - Collected Quotes

"A stray thought, wandering through the dimensions in search of a mind to harbour it, slid into his brain." (Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic", 1983)

"The dimension of the imagination is much more complex than those of time and space, which are very junior dimensions indeed." (Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic", 1983)

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." (Terry Pratchett, "Hogfather", 1996)

"Belief is a force. It’s a weak force, by comparison with gravity; when it comes to moving mountains, gravity wins every time. But it still exists." (Terry Pratchett, "Pyramids", 1989)

"It is now known to science that there are many more dimensions than the classical four. Scientists say that these don’t normally impinge on the world because the extra dimensions are very small and curve in on themselves, and that since reality is fractal most of it is tucked inside itself. This means either that the universe is more full of wonders than we can hope to understand or, more probably, that scientists make things up as they go along." (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids, 1989)

"Most people don’t listen. They use the time when someone else is speaking to think of what they’re going to say next. True Listeners have always been revered among oral cultures, and prized for their rarity value." (Terry Pratchett, "Pyramids", 1989)

"People needed to believe in gods, if only because it was so hard to believe in people." (Terry Pratchett, "Pyramids", 1989)

"The gods of the Disc have always been fascinated by humanity’s incredible ability to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time." (Terry Pratchett, "Pyramids", 1989)

"science: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science explains what is happening around us the whole time." (Terry Pratchett, "Wings", 1990)

"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it." (Terry Pratchett, "Diggers", 1990)

"The trouble with being a god is that you’ve got no one to pray to." (Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods", 1992)

"Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized." (Terry Pratchett, "Interesting Times", 1995)

On Literature: On Perception (From Fiction to Science-Fiction)

"True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion." (Lev N Tolstoy, "What is Art?", 1898)

"So-called common sense relies on programmed nonperception, concealment, or ridicule of everything that doesn’t fit into the conventional nineteenth century vision of a world that can be explained down to the last detail." (Stanislaw Lem, "The Investigation", 1959)

"He believed that the so-called hallucinations caused by some of these drugs (with emphasis, he continually reminded himself, on the word 'some') were not hallucinations at all, but perceptions of other zones of reality. Some of them were frightening; some appeared lovely." (Philip K Dick & Roger Zelazny, "Deus Irae", 1976)

"If mankind were to continue in other than the present barbarism, a new path must be found, a new civilization based on some other method than technology. Space is an illusion, and time as well. There is no such factor as either time or space. We have been blinded by our own cleverness, blinded by false perceptions of those qualities that we term eternity and infinity. There is another factor that explains it all, and once this universal factor is recognized, everything grows simple. There is no longer any mystery, no longer any wonder, no longer any doubt; for the simplicity of it all lies before us [...]" (Clifford D Simak,"A Heritage of Stars", 1977)

"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be - and naturally this means that there must be an accurate perception of the world as it will be. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking, whether he likes it or not, or even whether he knows it or not. Only so can the deadly problems of today be solved." (Isaac Asimov, [foreword to Robert Holdstock (Ed.), "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction] 1978)

"The Bistromathic Drive had revealed to him that time and distance were one, that mind and Universe were one, that perception and reality were one, and that the more one traveled the more one stayed in one place, and that what with one thing and another he would rather just stay put for a while and sort it all out in his mind, which was now at one with the Universe so it shouldn’t take too long." (Douglas Adams, "Life, the Universe, and Everything", 1982)

"One reason nature pleases us is its endless use of a few simple principles: the cube-square law; fractals; spirals; the way that waves, wheels, trig functions, and harmonic oscillators are alike; the importance of ratios between small primes; bilateral symmetry; Fibonacci series, golden sections, quantization, strange attractors, path-dependency, all the things that show up in places where you don’t expect them [...] these rules work with and against each other ceaselessly at all levels, so that out of their intrinsic simplicity comes the rich complexity of the world around us. That tension - between the simple rules that describe the world and the complex world we see - is itself both simple in execution and immensely complex in effect. Thus exactly the levels, mixtures, and relations of complexity that seem to be hardwired into the pleasure centers of the human brain - or are they, perhaps, intrinsic to intelligence and perception, pleasant to anything that can see, think, create? - are the ones found in the world around us." (John Barnes, "Mother of Storms", 1994)