Jack McDevitt quotes

Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters. (Jack McDevitt)
So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith. View quote
Jack McDevitt
If you want data to survive, carve it in rock. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Sometimes,” he said, "I think life is just one long series of blown opportunities. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend. View quote
Jack McDevitt
If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Put the money into schools. Rational ones that train young minds to think, to demand that persons in authority show the evidence for the ideas they push. Do that, and we won't need to provide a world for the Sacred Brethren who, given the opportunity, would run everyone else off the planet. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while the morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don't complain when the roof comes down. View quote
Jack McDevitt
If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Technological civilizations don't last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And maybe technology always wins. View quote
Jack McDevitt
So we have progressed to the point where we can move politicians around faster than light. I'm not sure I see the advantage. (Jack McDevitt)
Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women's bodies or to free the holy land, had been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely good news. View quote
Jack McDevitt
It is not faith per se that creates the problem; it is conviction, the notion that one cannot be wrong, that opposing views are necessarily invalid and may even be intolerable. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Decisions are always made with insufficient information. If you really knew what was going on, the decision would make itself. View quote
Jack McDevitt
How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top? View quote
Jack McDevitt
Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects. View quote
Jack McDevitt
There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Of course, they (i. e., demons) had always been observed with some regularity, but that could usually be ascribed to an overabundance of piety or wine or imagination. Take your pick. (Jack McDevitt)
The cultures we can look at had already grasped the essential unity of nature. No board of gods can survive that knowledge. View quote
Jack McDevitt
An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Maybe the universe doesn't approve of places like New York. View quote
Jack McDevitt
The queen of virtues is the recognition of one's own flaws. View quote
Jack McDevitt