110+ Michael Crichton Quotes On Religion, Education And Culture

Michael Crichton was an American author, film producer, and director. He is best known for his science fiction novels, such as Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain. He was also a screenwriter and television producer, as well as a medical doctor. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Michael Crichton on leadership, religion, education.

Top 10 Michael Crichton Quotes

1. Welcome...to Jurassic Park!
2. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
3. Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.
4. 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.
5. The extreme positions of the Crossfire Syndrome require extreme simplification - framing the debate in terms which ignore the real issues.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Social control is best managed through fear.
9. Harassment is about power---the undue exercise of power by a superior over a subordinate.
10. Because the history of evolution is that life escapes all barriers. Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way.

Michael Crichton Short Quotes

• Safety is the last refuge of the scoundrel!
• The system didn't screw you. The system revealed you.
• You know, at times like this one feels, well, perhaps extinct animals should be left extinct.
• Life will find a way.
• Everyone has a hidden agenda. Except me!
• Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.
• Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.
• You can't get decent Mexican food in DC.
• At the edge of chaos, unexpected outcomes occur. The risk to survival is severe.
• No man is so good as to be free from all evil, nor so bad as to be worth nothing.

Michael Crichton Quotes About World

We live in a world of frightful givens. It is given that you will behave like this, given that you will care about that. No one thinks about the givens. Isn't it amazing? In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought. — Michael Crichton

In our modern complex world, fundamentalism is dangerous because of its rigidity and its imperviousness to other ideas. — Michael Crichton

I hadn't traveled with the intention of learning about anything except myself. And the real point of all this travel was not what I had come to believe or disbelieve about the wider world, but what I had learned about myself. — Michael Crichton

Even if you don't believe in God, you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious. — Michael Crichton

Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always. — Michael Crichton

Science is the most exciting and sustained enterprise of discovery in the history of our species. It is the great adventure of our time. We live today in an era of discovery that far outshadows the discoveries of the New World five hundred years ago. — Michael Crichton

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

In a media-saturated world, persistent hype lends unwarranted credulity to the wildest claims. — Michael Crichton

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world. — Michael Crichton

The purpose of history is to explain the present - to say why the world around us is the way it is. History tells us what is important in our world, and how it came to be. It tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power - profound power. The power to define a whole society. — Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton Quotes About Fear

Each person bears a fear which is special to him. One man fears a close space and another man fears drowning; each laughs at the other and calls him stupid. Thus fear is only a preference, to be counted the same as the preference for one woman or another, or mutton for pig, or cabbage for onion. — Michael Crichton

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

False fears are a plague, a modern plague! — Michael Crichton

There is always a cause for fear. The cause may change over time, but the fear is always with us. — Michael Crichton

In truth, one of our company, the solemn warrior Ecthgow, was so demented from liquor that he was drunk while still upon his horse, and he fell attempting to dismount. Now the horse kicked him in the head, and I feared for his safety, but Ecthgow laughed and kicked the horse back. — Michael Crichton

And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don't know any better. — Michael Crichton

This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. — Michael Crichton

It's better to die laughing than to live each moment in fear. — Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton Quotes About Writing

Writing a book is a bit like going on location for a movie. You're absent from your life, your family, and your friends. You're psychologically gone, so you might as well be physically gone. — Michael Crichton

When I sit down in front of a Windows machine, I can't write; when I sit down in front of my Mac, I can write. So I only use Macs. — Michael Crichton

At forty, I was too old to work as a programmer myself anymore; writing code is a young person’s job. — Michael Crichton

Sneaking up on it sometimes helps: I've found I can be very productive for an hour before dinner, because there obviously isn't enough time to really do anything, so I can tell myself I'm just screwing around. — Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton Quotes About Science

Scientific research was much like prospecting: you went out and you hunted, armed with your maps and instruments, but in the ened your preparations did not matter, or even your intuition. You needed your luck, and whatever benefits accrued to the diligent, through sheer, grinding hard work. — Michael Crichton

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. — Michael Crichton

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. — Michael Crichton

Science is the business of generating testable hypotheses. — Michael Crichton

Physics was the first of the natural sciences to become fully modern and highly mathematical.Chemistry followed in the wake of physics, but biology, the retarded child, lagged far behind. — Michael Crichton

Science is a kind of glorified tailoring enterprise, a method for taking measurements that describe something ? reality ? that may not be understood at all. — Michael Crichton

God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs. — Michael Crichton

We need to get environmentalism out of the sphere of religion. We need to stop the mythic fantasies, and we need to stop the doomsday predictions. We need to start doing hard science instead. — Michael Crichton

Auschwitz exists because of politicized science. — Michael Crichton

I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics. — Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton Famous Quotes And Sayings

Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away : it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. — Michael Crichton

The purpose of life is to stay alive. Watch any animal in nature--all it tries to do is stay alive. It doesn't care about beliefs or philosophy. Whenever any animal's behavior puts it out of touch with the realities of its existence, it becomes exinct. — Michael Crichton

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

...scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young...there is no mastery, old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature...Its a form of inherited wealth. And you know what assholes congenitally rich people are. — Michael Crichton

The doctor is not a miracle worker who can magically save us but, rather, an expert adviser who can assist us in our own recovery. — Michael Crichton

Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase. — Michael Crichton

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. — Michael Crichton

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

All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don't you take it away from yourself. — Michael Crichton

All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong. — Michael Crichton

They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.' And?' Chaos theory throws it right out the window. — Michael Crichton

Most areas of intellectual life have discovered the virtues of speculation, and have embraced them wildly. In academia, speculation is usually dignified as theory. — Michael Crichton

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. — Michael Crichton

Sometimes I look around my living room, and the most real thing in the room is the television. It's bright and vivid, and the rest of my life looks drab. So I turn the damn thing off. That does it every time. Get my life back. — Michael Crichton

Personally, I don't deal much in theory. I have to deal with the facts. And on the basis of facts, I don't see much difference in the behavior of men and women. — Michael Crichton

I think every writer should have tattooed backwards on his forehead, like ambulance on ambulances, the words 'everybody needs an editor. — Michael Crichton

I tended to faint when I saw accident victims in the emergency ward, during surgery, or while drawing blood. — Michael Crichton

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

And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there. . . . And at the end of your life, your whole existence has the same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day. — Michael Crichton

People were so naive about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction---and defense. — Michael Crichton

We are all assumed, these days, to reside at one extreme of the opinion spectrum, or another. We are pro-abortion or anti-abortion. We are free traders or protectionists. We are pro-private sector or pro-government. We are feminists or chauvinists. But in the real world, few of us hold these extreme views. There is instead a spectrum of opinion. — Michael Crichton

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

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them. — Michael Crichton

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

Raising children is, in a sense, the reason the society exists in the first place. It's the most important thing that happens, and it's the culmination of all the tools and language and social structure that has evolved. — Michael Crichton

When I get sick, I go to my doctor like everyone else. A doctor has powerful tools that may help me. Or those tools may hurt me, make me worse. I have to decide. It's my life. It's my responsibility. — Michael Crichton

Right now, scientists are in exactly the same position as Renaissance painters, commissioned to make the portrait the patron wants done, And if they are smart, they'll make sure their work subtly flatters the patron. Not overtly. Subtly. — Michael Crichton

Living systems are never in equilibrium. They are inherently unstable. They may seem stable, but they’re not. Everything is moving and changing. In a sense, everything is on the edge of collapse. — Michael Crichton

Without question, the notion of the doctor as a legitimate fee-for-service entrepreneur, making his fortune from misfortunes of his patients, is old-fashioned, distasteful, and doomed. — Michael Crichton

God created dinosaurs. God destroyed dinosaurs. God created Man. Man destroyed God. Man created dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man...Woman inherits the earth. — Michael Crichton

You've never heard of Chaos theory? Non-linear equations? Strange attractors? Ms. Sattler, I refuse to believe you're not familiar with the concept of attraction. — Michael Crichton

You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school. — Michael Crichton

The truth is, almost nobody wants to experience real nature. What people want is to spend a week or two in a cabin in the woods, with screens on the windows. They want a simplified life for a while, without all their stuff. Or a nice river rafting trip for a few days, with somebody else doing the cooking. Nobody wants to go back to nature in any real way, and nobody does. It's all talk — Michael Crichton

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

I can tell you that second hand smoke is not a health hazard to anyone and never was, and the EPA has always known it. — Michael Crichton

Scientific power is like inherited wealth; attained without discipline. You read about what others have done, and you take the next step. You can do it very young. You can make progress very fast. — Michael Crichton

And entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality. — Michael Crichton

The people in Hollywood are fabulously stupid. — Michael Crichton

In the information society, nobody thinks. We expect to banish paper, but we actually banish thought. — Michael Crichton

This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you - the ability to imagine. — Michael Crichton

Increasingly, the mathematics will demand the courage to face its implications. — Michael Crichton

The second reason to abandon environmental religion is more pressing. Religions think they know it all, but the unhappy truth of the environment is that we are dealing with incredibly complex, evolving systems, and we usually are not certain how best to proceed. Those who are certain are demonstrating their personality type, or their belief system, not the state of their knowledge. — Michael Crichton

To give up responsibility for our lives is not healthy. — Michael Crichton

It is especially difficult for modern people to conceive that our modern, scientific age might not be an improvement over the prescientific period. — Michael Crichton

Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That's the game in science. — Michael Crichton

Nobody smart knows what they want to do until they get into their twenties or thirties. — Michael Crichton

Environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s. — Michael Crichton

Men under stress are fools, and fool themselves. — Michael Crichton

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

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am. — Michael Crichton

Friendships are nice. So is competence. — Michael Crichton

Do you want to understand how to swim, or do you want to jump in and start swimming? Only people who are afraid of the water want to understand it. Other people jump in and get wet. — Michael Crichton

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

I was certain that some people, whether by accident of birth or some pecularity of training, could tune in to another source of information and could know things about people we didn't think were possible to know. — Michael Crichton

Theories are just fantasies. And they change. — Michael Crichton

Story of our species...everyone knows it's coming, but not so soon. — Michael Crichton

The minute we look, we cease being afraid. — Michael Crichton

Exercise invigorates the body and sharpens the mind. — Michael Crichton

Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego. — Michael Crichton

Face the facts, all these environmental organizations are thirty, forty, fifty years old. They have big buildings, big obligations, big staffs. They may trade on their youthful dreams, but the truth is, they're now part of the establishment. And the establishment works to preserve the status quo. It just does. — Michael Crichton

The rules of grammar exist in large part to permit readers and writers to operate from a shared set of expectations. — Michael Crichton

We are one of only three species on our planet that can claim to be self-aware, yet self-delusion may be a more significant characteristic of our kind. — Michael Crichton

There isn't any delusion. It is absolutely clear that this body energy is a genuine phenomenon of some kind. — Michael Crichton

Nobody wants to feel they're not a rebel. — Michael Crichton

To apply general tools to specific problems is to fail. — Michael Crichton

It's not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw. — Michael Crichton

They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences. — Michael Crichton

All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there. — Michael Crichton

Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing. — Michael Crichton

When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately? — Michael Crichton

I believe my life has a value, and i don't want to waste it thinking about clothing. I don't want to think about what i will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? — Michael Crichton

I eventually realized that direct experience is the most valuable experience I can have. Western man is so surrounded by ideas, so bombarded with opinions, concepts, and information structures of all sorts, that it becomes difficult to experience anything without the intervening filter of these structures. — Michael Crichton

Life Lessons by Michael Crichton

1. Michael Crichton taught us to be courageous in the face of adversity and to never give up on our dreams.
2. He also showed us the importance of taking risks and embracing change in order to achieve success.
3. Finally, he taught us to be open-minded and to always question the status quo in order to innovate and improve.