I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.

Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.

A man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal.

When I was young I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock. So I stopped wearing socks.

The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says Yes to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says Maybe, and in the great majority of cases simply No. If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter Maybe, and if it does not agree it means No. Probably every theory will someday experience its No - most theories, soon after conception.

There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity and nuclear power: the will.

There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.

My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

it was four years since he had preached that sermon; four years, and England was at peace, the sun shone, the people of Crome were as wicked and indifferent as ever—more so, indeed, if that were possible. If only he could understand, if the heavens would but make a sign!

No holiday is ever anything but a disappointment.

Twenty-two years eight months and four days from that moment, a promising young Alpha- Minus administrator at Mwanza-Mwanza was to die of trypanosomiasis - the first case for over half a century. Sighing, Lenina went on with her work.