Clifford D. Simak quotes - page 5

Philbert was lost. Likewise, he was frightened. That, in itself, was frightening, for Philbert was a robot and robots should have no emotions. Philbert revolved that inside his brain case for many minutes, trying to figure it out. But there was no logic in it. (Clifford D. Simak)
It was a stem, like an apple stem, like a cherry stem - a stem attached quite solidly and naturally to one corner of a twenty-dollar bill! He dropped the pile of bills upon the seat and held up the stem and the bill hung from the stem, as if it were growing from the stem, and it was clear to see that the stem not long before had been fastened to a branch, for the mark of recent separation was plainly visible. Doyle whistled softly. A money tree, he thought. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
His new could reach to the ends of space and time, but never beyond reality. Even his cosmic aliens always had half human dimensions that made them believable. I loved him, as so many did, for his unfailing warmth and a wit that was keen but never cruel. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
Simak is the most underrated great s f writer alive. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
Regardless of their origins, his characters are more saints than sinners. Good predominates over evil and optimism over despair. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
Without Simak, science fiction would have been without its most humane element, its most humane spokesman for the wisdom of the ordinary person and the value of life lived close to the land. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
Man himself, by the power of mass suggestion, holds the physical fate of this earth ... yes, even the universe. Billions of minds seeing trees as trees, houses as houses, streets as streets ... and not as something else. Minds that see things as they are and have kept things as they were.... Destroy those minds and the entire foundation of matter, robbed of its regenerative power, will crumple and slip away like a column of sand... View quote
Clifford D. Simak
There wasn't, as a matter of fact, much of anything on this particular planet. It was strictly a low-grade affair and it wouldn't amount to much for another billion years. The survey, understandably, wasn't too interested in planets that wouldn't amount to much for another billion years. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
There is a certain rapport, a sensitivity - I don't know how to say it - that forms a bridge between this strange machine and the cosmic spiritual force. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
All the years of keeping out of people's way, all the years of being unobtrusive would be for nothing then. This strange house upon a lonely ridge would become a mystery for the world, and a challenge and a target for all the crackpots of the world. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
We are all genetic brothers. The chain of life, tracing back to that primordial day of life's beginning, is unbroken... (Clifford D. Simak)
The people finally know. They've been told about the mutants. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
There is a streak of cruelty that runs through the human race. You find it everywhere you look, on every page of recorded history. Man is not satisfied with inflicting death alone, he must inflict it with many painful frills. A boy pulls the wings off flies and ties tin cans to a dog's tail. The Assyrians flayed screaming thousands while they were still alive. The Aztecs cut out the hearts of their living sacrifices with a blunt stone knife. The Saxons threw men into the serpent pits or flayed them living and rubbed salt into the quivering flesh as the pelt peeled off. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
For assassination was political, even as diplomacy and war were political. After all, politics was little more than the short-circuiting of violence;.. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
There's something about the feel of power that makes it almost compulsive for a man to use it. Hand in hand with that power is the temptation to take a hand in history. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
It would seem to me that by the time a race has achieved deep space capability it would have matured to a point where it would have no thought of dominating another intelligent species. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
And time itself? Time was a never-ending medium that stretched into the future and the past - except there was no future and no past, but an infinite number of brackets, extending either way, each bracket enclosing its single phase of the Universe. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
My reluctance to use alien invasion is due to the feeling that we are not likely to be invaded and taken over. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead? View quote
Clifford D. Simak
It is only of life on Earth, however, that one can speak with any certainty. It seems to me that all life on Earth, the sum total of life upon the Earth, has purpose. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
If the means were available, we could trace our ancestry - yours and mine - back to the first blob of life-like material that came into being on the planet. (Clifford D. Simak)
When I talk of the purpose of life, I am thinking not only of human life, but of all life on Earth and of the life which must exist upon other planets throughout the universe. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
It seems to me, thinking of it, that there must be some universal plan which set in motion the orbiting of the electrons about the nucleus and the slower, more majestic orbit of the galaxies about one another to the very edge of space. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme - if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one. View quote
Clifford D. Simak
He had dabbled in a thing which he had not understood. And had, furthermore, committed that greater sin of thinking that he did understand. View quote
Clifford D. Simak