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.

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

Human history in essence is the history of ideas.

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

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

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

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

Cynicism is humor in ill health.

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

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

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

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

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

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

Advertising is legalized lying.

History is a race between education and catastrophe.

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

Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.

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

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