Gregory Benford Quotes

To peer through the quick stubble of mathematics and see the wonders lurking behind was to momentarily live in the infinite, beyond the press of the ordinary world where everyone else dwelled in ignorance.

Government doesn’t often move quickly, but when they do, it’s like an elephant stampede.

Minds embodies in strange shapes would still find themselves sharpened against evolution’s ceaseless whetstone.
What challenges would they face? In the end the universe as a whole was life’s ultimate opponent.

Science’s success did not need a God to explain it; the world was enough.

Boy, do I hate these holier-than-thou types." "Clerics." "Anybody who tries to hem science in, tell it what it can and cannot do. Boundaries are best defined by pushing against them. Expanding our horizons, our sense of wonder." She smiled. "There's nothing holier than wow!?

Einstein said that the only incomprehensible thing about the universe was that it was comprehensible. But resorting to God forgets what biology says—that our minds came out of the physical world, y’know, through evolution of early brain stems and neural systems to higher levels of complexity.

Women lurching around on heels they couldn’t manage (“sexy evening columns” as Frederick’s termed them)—further proof yet again that money can’t buy a clue.

He whispered, “Honey, it’s good ol’ love makes the world go round.”
“Actually, it’s inertia.”

Physicists had abandoned God long ago and hoped that firing repeated questions at nature would get to the truth. What scientists really believed in was that the think-check-think-again style of scientific method would yield some species of Truth.

There were the usual anxieties, starkly revealing the uneasiness that ordinary intellectuals had with science.

Sure," Max said offhand, "there are plenty of archbishops wringing their hands, mumbling philosophers and New Age gab pouring out in the media, but so what?" She laughed. He said New Age as one word, "newage," rhyming with "sewage.

All the way up through the academic world she had spent a lot of energy fending off the blandly patronizing efforts to enter her in what she termed the Oppression Sweepstakes. Now that she had done something worth noting, blackness attached itself to her like a lamprey.

Well, this was what dads were for: saying the unsayable when you needed it.

Given a choice between existential despair and rapt religious fervor, her crowd chose marijuana.

One of the better aspects of aging was that she no longer practiced dragging on cigarettes before the mirror, striving to get the right dissipated look, or tried on sunglasses until she found the kind the latest hip singer wore. Had she really worn those mirrorshades? Perfect holdovers from the Me Decade, because they let the viewer watch himself.