Quotes by George E. Brown, Jr.

Also by my earliest days, I was fascinated by a utopian vision of what the world could be like. I've thought that science could be the basis for a better world, and that's what I've been trying to do all these years.

Havel was influenced by the fact that the Communist system considered itself to be the ultimate in scientific rationalism. Communism was touted from the beginning as a scientific way of looking at the problems of society. It wasn't. It probably never could be. It represented an effort to control society with a philosophy that was antithetical to freedom and democracy.

I consider the probability that there is other intelligent life in the universe overwhelming. And we will ultimately find it.

I think we're soon going to have the exploration of the heavens by humans, starting with Mars and the rest of the solar system.

I was interested in science before I even knew what science was.

I've indicated to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin that if he thinks I'm physically qualified, I'd still like to go into space.

I've tried to understand Mr. Havel as much as I could. I think his feeling was that science was the ultimate expression of a neo-modernist philosophy and that it is inherently bad because it fails to consider human emotions and needs.

Industrial opportunities are going to stem more from the biological sciences than from chemistry and physics. I see biology as being the greatest area of scientific breakthroughs in the next generation.

The vast majority of politicians think they are functioning on high principle.

To build the funding of science for the next generation on the basis of the cold war was not well advised. That implied that science wasn't important enough to survive without a cold war. The truth is that science - research and development - is probably the most important factor in the progress of the human race over the last several thousand years.