As one of the founding fathers of science fiction, H.G. Wells certainly had a lot to say about the human race. From mankind’s fondness for war to our place in the universe, Wells certainly didn’t shy away from sharing his opinions. In honor of what would have been his 154th birthday, here are a few of H.G. Wells’s greatest hits.

1. ON WAR

“If we don’t end war, war will end us.”

—From Things to Come (1936)

John F. Kennedy’s speechwriters later adapted the phrase for his 1961 address to the United Nations: “The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.”

2. ON GLOBALIZATION

“Our true nationality is mankind.”

—From The Outline of History (1920)

3. ON WRITING

“I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.”

—From Experiment in Autobiography (1934)

4. ON GOLF

“The uglier a man’s legs are, the better he plays at golf. It’s almost a law.”

—From Bealby: A Holiday (1915)

5. ON THE FUTURE

“We were making the future, and hardly any of us troubled to think what future we were making.”

—From When The Sleeper Wakes (1899)

6. ON EDUCATION

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

—From The Outline of History (1920)

7. ON REALITY

“The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.”

—From The Discovery of the Future (1902)

H.G. Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, satire, biography, and autobiography, and even including two books on recreational war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called a “father of science fiction”, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback.During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering. 

For a list of his top 30 works, click here.

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