Fred Hoyle Quotes

I do not see any sense in continuing to skirmish on a battlefield where I can never hope to win. The Cambridge system is effectively designed to prevent one ever establishing a directed policy — key decisions can be upset by ill-informed and politically motivated committees. To be effective in this system one must for ever be watching one's colleagues, almost like a Robespierre spy system. If one does so, then of course little time is left for any real science.

My education was still full of holes, which I made a resolve to fill. I am still trying to carry it out.

The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate … . It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect … higher intelligences … even to the limit of God … such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.

There is a coherent plan to the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for.

All people are the same, pretty well irrespective of color, creed, or the way they happen to grunt out their language.

I'm still waiting to hear how I should have compromised. Are you sure that 'compromise' and 'capitulate' are not synonymous in your vocabulary?

I am often asked what it is like to be a scientist and how one goes about being a scientist. I find such questions uncomfortable because I know of no nicely potted answers to them. It is necessary to dig deep into one’s own experience to produce anything like a worthwhile assessment. And this is to risk the perils of autobiography, usually so fascinating to the narrator and so boring to the reader.

Not everyone views the government with quite the same disrespect that you do."
"No, more's the pity.

It’s only too easy to read your own state of mind into what other people say.

Losing power, utterly and completely, is the most dreadful prospect that a politician can think of. It overshadows everything else.

Once the spark was struck the story would spread like wildfire, and would be in the papers in next to no time. The Director had never had any cause to think highly of newspaper reporters, particularly of their scientific accuracy.

The attitude of the conservative is basically wrong: change should not be opposed. Not in a root and branch sense. What the conservatives should demand and insist on is that any projected changes should be reversible. The deadly changes are those which are irreversible, like the British introducing Greeks into Cyprus. Or like taking the sparrow and the rabbit to Australia. So long as a projected change can be shown to be reversible there should be no very serious objection to making a tryout. If the first step along the new road turns out well, the second step can be made, but if it turns out badly one simply retreats to where one was before. This seems to me to be the essential principle of social change.

There may be hagglers who will dispute this statement, but if so I propose to disregard them.

I have been astonished by the way in which the tug of war between left and right is conducted. What seems to happen is this: the left, the ideas-men, the liberals, propose a new idea involving change. The conservatives oppose all change on principle. An argument now develops in which I find myself unable to take any real part. I know that without new ideas, without change, even the most modest enterprise soon congeals and dies. But I also know that most new ideas, like mutations, turn out very badly. Hence from the beginning I am aware of the basic dilemma. But not so the liberals or the conservatives. The liberals, for their part, are quite convinced that the new idea is an excellent one, but when pressed for proof they merely follow the dictum of Robert Owen, “never argue, repeat your assertion.” So far as the liberals are concerned I feel as if I were in the presence of divine revelation. The conservatives on the other hand are blockers, stone wallers, Verdun-types with “they shall not pass” expression written all over their faces. On the whole, because I know that most new ideas are dubious, I end by voting with the conservatives.