Utopia - Quotes from Science Fiction

A lot of quotations carefully collected from a very big amount of books and divided by categories.

Have fun reading it, this is really interesting and breathtaking!

Let me compare humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp, watered with black bog-water, breathing miasmatic fogs by day, and chilled with poison dews at night. Innumerable generations of gardeners had done their best to make it bloom, but beyond an occasional half-opened bud with a worm at the heart, their efforts had been unsuccessful. [. . .] Finally, during a period of general despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was, the idea of transplanting it was again mooted, and this time found favor. ''Let us try it,'' was the general voice. ''Perhaps it may thrive better elsewhere, and here it is certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivating longer.'' So it came about that the rosebush of humanity was transplanted, and set in sweet, warm, dry earth, where the sun bathed it, the stars wooed it, and the south wind caressed it. Then it appeared that it was indeed a rosebush. The vermin and the mildew disappeared, and the bush was covered with the most beautiful red roses, whose fragrance filled the world.

- Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888)

The Utopia of a modern dreamer must needs differ in one fundamental aspect from the Nowheres and Utopias men planned before Darwin quickened the thought of the world. Those were all perfect and static States, a balance of happiness won for ever against the forces of unrest and disorder that inhere in things. [. . .] But the Modern Utopia must be not static but kinetic, must shape not as a permanent state but as a hopeful stage, leading to a long ascent of stages. Nowadays we do not resist and overcome the great stream of things, but rather float upon it.We build now not citadels, but ships of state.

- H. G.Wells,AModern Utopia (1905)

Here was evidently a people highly skilled, efficient, caring for their country as a florist cares for his costliest orchids.

- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

Theirs was a civilization in which the initial difficulties had long since been overcome. The untroubled peace, the unmeasured plenty, the steady health, the large good will and smooth management which ordered everything, left nothing to overcome. It was like a pleasant family in an old established, perfectly-run country place.

- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

The entire history of mankind, insofar as we know it, is the history of transition from nomadic to increasingly settled forms of existence. And does it not follow that the most settled form (ours) is at the same time the most perfect (ours)?

- Yevgeny Zamiatin, We (1924), translated by Mirra Ginsburg (1972)

Our prevalent belief is in moderation.We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds - even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself. In the valley which you have seen, and in which there are several thousand inhabitants living under the control of our order, we have found that the principle makes for a considerable degree of happiness.We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. And I think I can claim that our people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest.

- James Hilton, Lost Horizon (1933)

He often felt the invasion of a deep spiritual emotion, as if Shangri-La were indeed a living essence, distilled from the magic of the ages and miraculously preserved against time and death.

- James Hilton, Lost Horizon (1933)

A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain.

- Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar AllanWoolf, TheWizard of Oz (film, 1939)

I stood long at the window in a dream. There was such quiet and peace! It was hard to believe that I was in an actual city, for in the sunlight and stillness what I saw was like a painted model.

- Austin TappanWright, Islandia (1942)

The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they seemed to become with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty.

- Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959)

Over and over it's been the same sad story: a plan for perfect sharing and perfect love, glorious hopes and high ideals - then persecution and failure.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

It was almost beyond his imagination to conceive of a place in the universe with clean, cheerful cities, billions of good, intelligent people, and mutual trust everywhere.

- Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky, Prisoners of Power (1969), translated by Helen Saltz Jacobson (1977)

There are no easy Utopias.

- Gerald Jonas, ''The Shaker Revival'' (1970)

Paradise is for those who make Paradise.

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974)

Every utopia has its flaw.

- S. P. Somtow, ''The Thirteenth Utopia'' (1979)