Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

H. G. Wells Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Sep 21, 1866
  • Died: Aug 13, 1946

Herbert George "H. G." Wells was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, and social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, and Wells is sometimes called the father of science fiction, as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Doctor Moreau.

Wells's earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of journalist.

In politics, strangely enough, the best way to play your cards is to lay them face upwards on the table.

Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.

Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge.

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.

I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.

Human history in essence is the history of ideas.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.

Advertising is legalized lying.

If we don't end war, war will end us.

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.

Cynicism is humor in ill health.

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober not to make us sorry but wise.

Crime and bad lives are the measure of a State's failure, all crime in the end is the crime of the community.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.

Heresies are experiments in man's unsatisfied search for truth.

History is a race between education and catastrophe.

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.