H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells—known as 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. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, and is called the father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. He was...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth21 September 1866
We want to get rid of the militarist not simply because he hurts and kills, but because he is an intolerable thick-voiced blockhead who stands hectoring and blustering in our way of achievement.
The passion for playing chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world. It slaps the theory of natural selection in the face. It is the most absorbing of occupations. The least satisfying of desires. A nameless excrescence upon life. It annihilates a man. You have, let us say, a promising politician, a rising artist that you wish to destroy. Dagger or bomb are archaic and unreliable - but teach him, inoculate him with chess.
The passion for playing Chess is one of the most unaccountable in the world
The choice is: the Universe...or nothing.
Anthropology has been compared to a great region, marked out indeed as within the sphere of influence of science, but unsettled and for the most part unsubdued. Like all such hinterland sciences, it is a happy hunting-ground for adventurers.
The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to blow in freshening gusts from the east, and the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives - all that was over.
Men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise.
If after all my Atheology turns out wrong and your Theology right I feel I shall always be able to pass into Heaven (if I want to) as a friend of G.K.C.'s. Bless you.
What good is religion if it collapses under calamity?
The true sweetness of chess, if it can ever be called sweet, is to see a victory snatched, by some happy impertinence, out of the shadows of apparently irrevocable disaster.
The fertilising conflict of individualities is the ultimate meaning of the personal life.
Bah! The thing is not a nose at all, but a bit of primordial chaos clapped on to my face.
There are no social differences - till women come in.
Our business here is to be Utopian, to make vivid and credible, if we can, first this facet and then that, of an imaginary whole and happy world.