- Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now. (loc. 310-311)
- Men worked for the sake of the luxuries they desired; or they did not work at all. (loc. 1161-1162)
- Production had become largely automatic; the robot factories poured forth consumer goods in such unending streams that all the ordinary necessities of life were virtually free. Men worked for the sake of the luxuries they desired; or they did not work at all. (loc. 1160-1162)
- Crime had practically vanished. It had become both unnecessary and impossible. When no one lacks anything, there is no point in stealing. (loc. 1165-1166)
- Though Karellen was often asked to express his views on religion, all that he would say was that a man’s beliefs were his own affair, so long as they did not interfere with the liberty of others. (loc. 1197-1199)
- Humanity had lost its ancient gods; now it was old enough to have no need for new ones. (loc. 1213-1214)
- When the Overlords had abolished war and hunger and disease, they had also abolished adventure. (loc. 1529-1529)
- The existence of so much leisure would have created tremendous problems a century before. Education had overcome most of these, for a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom. (loc. 1857-1858)
- The abolition of armed forces had at once almost doubled the world’s effective wealth, and increased production had done the rest. (loc. 1868-1869)
- There were, of course, some drones, but the number of people sufficiently strong-willed to indulge in a life of complete idleness is much smaller than is generally supposed. (loc. 1873-1874)
- “Personally, I’ve never seen why you were in such a hurry to get out there. It will be centuries before we’ve got everything in the oceans nicely charted and pigeon-holed.” (loc. 2010-2011)
- Do you realise that every day something like five hundred hours of radio and TV pour out over the various channels? If you went without sleep and did nothing else, you could follow less than a twentieth of the entertainment that’s available at the turn of a switch! No wonder that people are becoming passive sponges — absorbing but never creating. Did you know that the average viewing time per person is now three hours a day? (loc. 2363-2367)
- But they knew in their hearts that once science had declared a thing possible, there was no escape from its eventual realisation… (loc. 2490-2491)
- And yet — no one could be sure. He might himself be putting on a superb act, following the performance by logic alone and with his own strange emotions completely untouched, as an anthropologist might take part in some primitive rite. The fact that he uttered the appropriate sounds, and made the expected responses, really proved nothing at all. (loc. 2745-2747)
- No one of intelligence resents the inevitable. (loc. 3473-3474)
- Perhaps that’s what the old religions were trying to say. But they got it all wrong; they thought mankind was so important, yet we’re only one race in — do you know how many? (loc. 3657-3659)