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Link	Quote	Stars	Tags	Author
f07dc16	I perceived with a sudden novel vividness the extraordinary folly of everything I had ever done.			H.G. Wells
bad1ae7	A strange persuasion came upon me that, save for the grossness of the line, save for the grotesqueness of the forms, I had here before me the whole balance of human life in miniature, the whole interplay of instinct, reason, and fate in its simplest form.			H.G. Wells
3c92d5f	The history of mankind," said Dreed, "has been a history of betrayals, the perennial betrayal of the common man by the men he has trusted." "By the men the lazy, haphazard, childish oaf was too wilfully stupid to mistrust," said Bodisham. "The history of mankind from the very beginning has been a history of over-trusted trustees, corrupted by their unchecked opportunities."		trust leaders corruption humankind	H.G. Wells
92be658	I had never realised it before, but the nose is to the mind of a dog what the eye is to the mind of a seeing man. Dogs perceive the scent of a man moving as men perceive his vision. This			H.G. Wells
432ada0	Had Moreau had any intelligible object, I could have sympathized at least a little with him. I am not so squeamish about pain as that. I could have forgiven him a little even, had his motive been only hate. But he was so irresponsible, so utterly careless! His curiosity, his mad, aimless investigations, drove him on; and the Things were thrown out to live a year or so, to struggle and blunder and suffer, and at last to die painfully.		science irresponsibility horror	H.G. Wells
66208f3	Dr. Chanter, in his brilliant History of Human Thought in the Twentieth Century, has made the suggestion that only a very small proportion of people are capable of acquiring new ideas of political or social behaviour after they are twenty-five years old. On the other hand, few people become directive in these matters until they are between forty and fifty. Then they prevail for twenty years or more. The conduct of public affairs therefore i..		war history stagnation ideas power	H.G. Wells
3ca9260	Then suddenly the humour of the situation came into my mind: the thought of the years I had spent in study and toil to get into the future age, and now my passion of anxiety to get out of it. I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised. Although it was at my own expense, I could not help myself. I laughed aloud.			H.G. Wells
0b054f6	Indeed Christianity passes. Passes--it has gone! It has littered the beaches of life with churches, cathedrals, shrines and crucifixes, prejudices and intolerances, like the sea urchin and starfish and empty shells and lumps of stinging jelly upon the sands here after a tide. A tidal wave out of Egypt. And it has left a multitude of little wriggling theologians and confessors and apologists hopping and burrowing in the warm nutritious sand...		churches arianism cathedrals crucifixes intolerances sea-urchin shrines outdated litter harmful toxic prejudices theologians pollution plague egypt	H.G. Wells
14b3eeb	Modern war, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only through the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and intellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind.		war politics peace-on-earth politicians	H.G. Wells
8228899	For fifteen years Mr. Polly was a respectable shopkeeper in Fishbourne. Years they were in which every day was tedious, and when they were gone it was as if they had gone in a flash.		time-flies wasted-life	H.G. Wells
46f69cc	Time is only a kind of Space.			H.G. Wells
0ae4f20	At the time there was a strong feeling in the streets that the authorities were to blame for their incapacity to dispose of the invaders without all this inconvenience.			H.G. Wells
5d2226b	I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The			H.G. Wells
0c53211	What good would the moon be to men? Even of their own planet what have they made but a battleground and theatre of infinite folly? Small as his world is, and short as his time, he has still in his little life down there far more than he can do.			H.G. Wells
d25422a	One may picture, too, the sudden shifting of the attention, the swiftly spreading coils and bellyings of that blackness advancing headlong, towering heavenward, turning the twilight to a palpable darkness, a strange and horrible antagonist of vapour striding upon its victims, men and horses near it seen dimly, running, shrieking, falling headlong, shouts of dismay, the guns suddenly abandoned, men choking and writhing on the ground, and the..		extinction dead	H.G. Wells
a926068	Where there is no derision the people perish," said Chiffan. "Now who said that?" asked Steenhold, always anxious to check his quotations. "It sounds familiar." "I said it," said Chiffan. "Get on with your suggestions."		free-speech protest	H.G. Wells
92bd69f	The immediate pressure of necessity has brightened their intellects, enlarged their powers, and hardened their hearts.			H.G. Wells
ae181ef	What a huge inaccessible lumber-room of thought and experience we amounted to, I thought; how much we are, how little we transmit.		life inner-life thought	H.G. Wells
14d20ac	Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?			H.G. Wells
9201d96	The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ended when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic railways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth now is power as it never was power before--it commands earth and sea and sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth.....		power	H.G. Wells
8f840e8	N]othing is so pleasing to perplexed unhappy people as the denunciation of others,			H.G. Wells
9be484e	The sea was silent, the sky was silent; I was alone with the night and silence.		silence tranquility peaceful night	H.G. Wells
daaa6d6	I have wasted strength, time, opportunities. Alone -- it is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, to hurt a little, and there is the end.			H.G. Wells
2133d11	All the English flowers came from Shakespeare. I don't know what we did before his time. The Secret Places of the Heart			H.G. Wells
1f32799	I am just a human being -- solid, needing food and drink, needing covering too -- But I'm invisible. You see? Invisible. Simple idea. Invisible.			H.G. Wells
fc30ee5	Why not?' said the Time Traveller.			H.G. Wells
53d3f08	All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives - all that was over.		time-travel	H.G. Wells
c87f936	Why did every human concern clog itself up in a tangle of routines, formalities, disciplines, imperatives? Why couldn't one be free? Really free? Guarding one's freedom, wasn't freedom at all. Why couldn't one win one's freedom for good and all, and get on with life?		routine order	H.G. Wells
56a8373	The essence of the Revolution is to abolish the attainment of unqualified power of man over man either by vote-getting, money-pressure or crude terror. The Revolution repudiates profit or terror altogether as methods of human intercourse. It turns the attention of men and women back from a frantic and futile struggle for the means of power, a struggle against our primary social instincts, to an innate urgency to make and to a beneficial com..		money society revolution power terror	H.G. Wells
6942256	Man is now a new animal, a new and different animal; he can jump a hundred miles, see through brick walls, bombard atoms, analyse the stars, set about his business with the strength of a million horses. And so forth and so on. Yes. Yes. But all the same he goes on behaving like the weak little needy ape he used to be. He grabs, snarls, quarrels, fears, stampedes, and plays in his immense powder magazine until he seems likely to blow up the ..		mankind man humans	H.G. Wells
8d6a4de	Well, anyhow, the practical outcome of all these damn democratic ideas, is that men of our quality -- yes, damn it! we have a quality -- excuse themselves from the hard and thankless service they owe -- not to the crowd, Dick, but to the race. (Much good it will do is to shirk like that in the long run.) We will not presume, we say, no. We shrug our shoulders and leave the geese, the hungry sheep, the born followers, call them what you will..		humanity society humans	H.G. Wells
5d7e4dd	I tell you, stupidity, self-protective stupidity, is the fundamental sin. No man alive has a right to contentment. No man alive has a right to mental rest. No man has any right to be as stupid as educated, Liberal men have been about that foolish affair at Geneva. Men who have any leisure, any gifts, any resources, have no right to stifle their consciences with that degree of imposture.		stupidity ignorance	H.G. Wells
eb696c4	He extended his hand: It seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation." --			H.G. Wells
aec8cff	Fine hospitality," said I, "to a man who has travelled innumerable years to see you."			H.G. Wells
674546a	Looks to me like the sort of fellow one doesn't play cards with.			H.G. Wells
d382c90	It was his first definite encounter with the wary-eyed, platitudinous, evasive Labour leaders, and he realised at once the formidable barrier of inert leadership they constituted, between the discontented masses and constructive change. They seemed to be almost entirely preoccupied by internecine intrigues and the "discipline of the Party". They were steeped in Party professionalism. They were not in any way traitors to their cause, or wilf..		politics labour-party politicians ignorance	H.G. Wells
e0a9c53	The queer thing is that we do trust you," said Bodisham. "In spite of your -- extremism." "You'd better," said Rud with grim conviction. "I'm right. What is extremism? The whole truth and nothing but the truth. I ask you." "It's because of his extremism you trust him," said Chiffan. "It's because in the last resort we believe in his indiscretion, and know he won't fail us even if we fail ourselves. All leadership is extravagance. Extra-vaga..		leadership truth	H.G. Wells
f04927c	This sense of insecurity was falling about the entire planet and though people went on doing the things they usually did, they had none of the assurance, the happy-go-lucky "all-right" feeling, that had hitherto sustained normal men. They went on doing their customary things because they could not think of anything else to do. They tried to believe, and many did succeed in believing, that there would presently be a turn for the better. They..		world society insecurity	H.G. Wells
7f4f452	That City of yours is a morbid excrescence. Wall Street is a morbid excrescence. Plainly it's a thing that has grown out upon the social body rather like -- what do you call it? -- an embolism, thrombosis, something of that sort. A sort of heart in the wrong place, isn't it? Anyhow -- there it is. Everything seems obliged to go through it now; it can hold up things, stimulate things, give the world fever or pain, and yet all the same -- is ..		money the-city wall-street regulation finance power	H.G. Wells
b6a32d2	It doesn't follow that a nasty habit of mind is any less nasty because it's ancestral. It doesn't follow you can't cure it. Why scratch fleas for ever? Gambling, speculation, is a social disease. It's as natural and desirable as -- syphilis...		history social-disease society	H.G. Wells
e276320	He came away with an exasperated sense of failure. He denounced parliamentary government root and branch that night. Parliament was doomed. The fact that it had not listened to Rud was only one little conclusive fact in a long indictment. "It has become a series of empty forms," he said. "All over the world, always, the sawdust of reality is running out of the shapes of quasi-public things. Not one British citizen in a thousand watches what..		politics parliament politicians government ignorance	H.G. Wells
6aea103	It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller			H.G. Wells
c84c3b6	for the strength of a man and the softness of a woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical force; where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity--indeed there is no necessity--for an efficient family, and the ..			H.G. Wells
f4d77d8	There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.			H.G. Wells

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