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H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells Quotes

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Famous H. G. Wells Quotes

“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?”

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Book:The Time Machine
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“Life is two things. Life is morality – life is adventure. Squire and master. Adventure rules, and morality looks up the trains in the Bradshaw. Morality tells you what is right, and adventure moves you. If morality means anything it means keeping bounds, respecting implications, respecting implicit bounds. If individuality means anything it means breaking bounds – adventure.”

IfsLooksMeanTwoMovingLife IsAdventureMastersMoralityTrainBoundsIndividualityLook UpTwo ThingsImplicationsImplicitLife Is An AdventureSquires
Book:Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells
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“To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, might suddenly become—this.”

ThinkingMenMeanMightWould BeVisionPovertyDoubtSawsMagicMysteryTeachingCollegeFoolMagnificentInvisibilityShabbyDrawbacks
Book:The Invisible Man
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“Perhaps I am a man of exceptional moods. I do not know how far my experience is common. At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all. This feeling was very strong upon me that night. Here was another side to my dream.”

KnowsMenWorldFeelingsDreamSeemsNightSufferingStrongSidesSpaceCommonWatchesKnow HowStressTragedyMoodVery StrongExceptionalDetachment
Author:H. G. Wells
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“Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years old, another atfifteen, another at seventeen, another at twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.”

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Book:The Time Machine (Sparklesoup Classics)
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“If I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence; I become absent minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length of time any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should we not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time Dimension; or even to turn about and travel the other way?”

IfsMenWayShouldMayMeanMomentsAbleTimeTurnsCoursesAnimalFeetSixInstantDimensionsStayingLengthCivilizedSavagesBetter OffAbsentIncidentsBalloonsAccelerateGravitationAbsent Minded
Author:H. G. Wells
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“A federation of all humanity, together with a sufficient measure of social justice, to ensure health, education, and a rough equality of opportunity to most of the children born into the world, would mean such a release and increase of human energy as to open a new phase in human history.”

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Book:The Outline of History
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“There was a time when I believed in the story and the scheme of salvation, so far as I could understand it, just as I believed there was a Devil... Suddenly the light broke through to me and I knew this God was a lie... For indeed it is a silly story, and each generation nowadays swallows it with greater difficulty... Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity?”

PeopleStoriesLightLyingReligionChristianityGreaterGenerationsGoes OnDevilDifficultySalvationSillyBrokePretendingSchemes
Author:H. G. Wells
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“A priest is a man vowed, trained, and consecrated, a man belonging to a special corps, and necessarily with an intense esprit de corps. He has given up his life to his temple and his god. This is a very excellent thing for the internal vigour of his own priesthood, his own temple. He lives and dies for the honour of his particular god. But in the next town or village is another temple with another god. It is his constant preoccupation to keep his people from that god. Religious cults and priesthoods are sectarian by nature; they will convert, they will overcome, but they will never coalesce.”

PeopleMenReligionDiesNextGivenReligiousSpecialParticularOvercomingTownsConstantIntenseExcellentInternalsTemplesPriestsBelongingVillageHonourCultGiven UpPreoccupationPriesthoodEsprit De CorpsReligious Cults
Book:Delphi Collected Works of H. G. Wells (Illustrated)
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“Why had we come to the moon? The thing presented itself to me as a perplexing problem. What is this spirit in man that urges him for ever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk an even a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me that there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made to go about safe and comfortable and well fed and amused. ... against his interest, against his happiness, he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him, and he must go.”

MenWellsMadeProblemSpiritForceInterestKnownRiskSecurityDangerAdventureOughtMoonSafeComfortableDrivenCertaintyReasonableUrgesFedsToilUnreasonableAmusedCertainty Of Death
Book:H. G. WELLS Ultimate Collection: 120+ Science Fiction Classics, Novels & Stories; Including Scientific, Political and Historical Works: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Modern Utopia, A Short History of the World, What Is Coming, The Story of the Last Trump…
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“You cannot imagine the craving for rest that I feel-a hunger and thirst. For six long days, since my work was done, my mind has been a whirlpool, swift, unprogressive and incessant, a torrent of thoughts leading nowhere, spinning round swift and steady.”

FeelsMindLongHas BeensDoneImagineSixRoundsHungerSteadyThirstCravingInsomniaSpinningIncessantLong DayHunger And ThirstWhirlpools
Book:Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells
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“I had just taken to reading. I had just discovered the art of leaving my body to sit impassive in a crumpled up attitude in a chair or sofa, while I wandered over the hills and far away in novel company and new scenes... My world began to expand very rapidly,... the reading habit had got me securely.”

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Book:Experiment in Autobiography - Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (since 1866)
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“The Islamic teachings have left great traditions for equitable and gentle dealings and behavior, and inspire people with nobility and tolerance. These are human teachings of the highest order and at the same time practicable. These teachings brought into existence a society in which hard-heartedness and collective oppression and injustice were the least as compared with all other societies preceding it....Islam is replete with gentleness, courtesy, and fraternity.”

PeopleHumansHardOrderLeftExistenceTeachingInspireBehaviorHighestTraditionIslamInjusticeToleranceOppressionGentleIslamicCollectivesGentlenessNobilityCourtesyFraternityDealingsEquitableIslamic Society
Author:H. G. Wells
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