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

To achieve anything really worthwhile in research it is necessary to go against the opinions of one's fellows. To do so successfully, not merely becoming a crackpot, requires fine judgement, especially on long-term issues that cannot be settled quickly. ...To hold popular opinion is cheap, costing nothing in reputation, whereas to accept that there is evidence pointing oppositely... is to risk scientific tar and feathers. Yet not to take the risk is to make certain that, if something new is really there, you won't be the one to find it.

This may seem like insanity, and so it is. It offsets the real problems of modern life. How can an apparently insane species manage to organize itself in a civilized way? I am not so sure that it can. The big mystery is why we have managed to get so far.

I do not believe that anything really worthwhile will come out of the exploration of the slag heap that constitutes the surface of the moon...Nobody should imagine that the enormous financial budget of NASA implies that astronomy is now well supported.