Michael Crichton Quotes

Quotes about:

• The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

  Michael Crichton

  Scientist, Broke, Periods

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". A lecture at the California Institute of Technology, January 17, 2003.

  8 Copy quote

• Social control is best managed through fear.

  Michael Crichton

  Fear, Social, Social Control

  28 Copy quote

• The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

  Michael Crichton

  Reality, Thinking, Challenges

  Remarks to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

  24 Copy quote

• Geniuses never pay attention.

  Michael Crichton

  Attention, Genius, Pay

  Michael Crichton (1997). “Michael Crichton's Jurassic World”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

  6 Copy quote

• Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.

  Michael Crichton

  Fear, Thinking, Self

  "The Lost World". Book by Michael Crichton, 1995.

  28 Copy quote

• Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

  Michael Crichton

  Matter, Way, Firsts

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". A lecture at the California Institute of Technology, January 17, 2003.

  30 Copy quote

• Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're being asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

  Michael Crichton

  Believe, Years, Weather

  7 Copy quote

• You think you can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. . . . . We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

  Michael Crichton

  Eye, Thinking, Vanity

  44 Copy quote

• If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.

  Michael Crichton

  Life, Family, History

  14 Copy quote

• Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism.
  Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists.

  Michael Crichton

  Atheist, Powerful, Choices

  Remarks to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

  6 Copy quote

• Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.

  Michael Crichton

  Science, Prejudice, Opinion

  35 Copy quote

• Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

  Michael Crichton

  Literature, Belief, Scientist

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". Caltech Michelin's Lecture at the California Institute of Technology, January 17, 2003.

  69 Copy quote

• They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.

  Michael Crichton

  Tombstone, Race, Humans

  Michael Crichton (2003). “Prey”

  13 Copy quote

• Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.

  Michael Crichton

  Inspirational, Life, Air

  Michael Crichton (1997). “The Lost World”, Knopf

  36 Copy quote

• We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds - and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own.

  Michael Crichton

  Writing, Past, Thinking

  9 Copy quote

• I operate under the assumption that the mass media will never be accurate. ... It operates with the objective to simplify and exaggerate, which is exactly what Walt Disney told his cartoonists.

  Michael Crichton

  Media, Assumption, Propaganda

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• Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

  Michael Crichton

  Way, Sun, Global Warming

  "Aliens Cause Global Warming". Lecture by Michael Crichton, January 17, 2003.

  10 Copy quote

• Working inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working.

  Michael Crichton

  Inspiration, Bored, Inspire

  14 Copy quote

• The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.

  Michael Crichton

  Reality, Challenges, Fantasy

  Michael Crichton's Remarks to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, www.cs.cmu.edu. September 15, 2003.

  14 Copy quote

• Science is as corruptible a human activity as any other.

  Michael Crichton

  Integrity, Physics, Humans

  Michael Crichton (2007). “Next”, HarperCollins UK

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• It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear.

  Michael Crichton

  Inspirational, Death, Fear

  37 Copy quote

• Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

  Michael Crichton

  Book, Writing, Done

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  52 Copy quote

• In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.

  Michael Crichton

  Hands, Boredom, Disease

  Michael Crichton (2000). “Timeline”

  7 Copy quote

• Life will find a way.

  Michael Crichton

  Life, Jurassic Park, Way

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• We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.

  Michael Crichton

  Ideas, Environment, Live Every Day

  Michael Crichton (1996). “Michael Crichton: Two Complete Novels”, Wings

  11 Copy quote

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