American author & astrophysicist (1941- )
For decades now the picture of the world painted by the scientists had become strange, distant, unbelievable. Far easier, then, to ignore it than try to understand. Things were too complicated. Why bother? Turn on the telly, luv. Right.
GREGORY BENFORD
Timescape
Often, the battle of conservatism begins with calls for a "moratorium" on research.... On the surface, this scenario almost sounds reasonable. They ask for scientists to take a break and let the bioethicists play catchup ball. But there's a false analogy at work here. No bioethics Manhattan Project is going to find some dazzling new bioethical principle. We know all that we're going to know, short of the arrival of a great new philosopher, about the moral issues. Failing to find such new principles, bioethics boards often resort to slippery-slope arguments. The trouble with these warnings is historically obvious. Taken seriously, they could have stopped technological advances since the wheel. The argument is itself a slippery slope.
GREGORY BENFORD
Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs
Once you've grown up in space, moving on means moving out, not going back to Earth. Nobody wants to be a groundpounder.
GREGORY BENFORD
Matter's End
People fear their hidden selves, afraid that they will burst out.
GREGORY BENFORD
Foundation's Fear
Civilization was a defense against nature's raw power.
GREGORY BENFORD
Foundation's Fear
It is our station to live within laws that give us being, but offer of themselves no purpose or promise, no triumph as a species. The universe allows us a place in its systematic workings but only cares for the system itself, not us.
GREGORY BENFORD
"Starswarmer"
The difference between a conviction and a prejudice is that you can explain a conviction without getting angry.
GREGORY BENFORD
Deeper than the Darkness
Decide had the same root as suicide and homicide. Decisions felt like little killings. Somebody lost.
GREGORY BENFORD
Foundation's Fear
You know, my dear, you're wrong that suffering ennobles people.... It simply makes one cross.
GREGORY BENFORD
"Nooncoming", In Alien Flesh
The past was a jigsaw puzzle and you never had all the pieces.
GREGORY BENFORD
Artifact
In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement.
GREGORY BENFORD
Artifact
Life is a long march, an endless column of souls moving forward through surrounding dark. In that crowd nobody knows where they're going, but there is plenty of talk, and the fools, some called philosophers, pretend to understand.
GREGORY BENFORD
Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape
It's a hard man who's only just, and a sad man who's only wise.
GREGORY BENFORD
Foundation's Fear
But the answers come when they will, one piece at a time.
GREGORY BENFORD
"Exposures", Asimov's, July 6, 1981
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
GREGORY BENFORD
The Berlin Project
Bad fiction uses the glossy generality; good writing needs the smattering of detail, the unrelenting busy mystery of the real.
GREGORY BENFORD
afterword, "Exposures", In Alien Flesh
To expect the world to treat you fairly because you're a good person, my friend, is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian.
GREGORY BENFORD
Rewrite: Loops in the Timescape
Try to get all your posthumous medals in advance.
GREGORY BENFORD
Shipstar
Sour grapes, the champagne of the intelligentsia.
GREGORY BENFORD
The Berlin Project
Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people apologize to corpses?
GREGORY BENFORD
Heart of the Comet