--- title: "1 Across the universe Quotes By Stephen Baxter" description: "1 Across the universe quotes by Stephen Baxter. Plus more from Stephen Baxter and more Across the universe sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/dac/stephen-baxter-15017_across-the-universe_in-the-afterglow-of-the-big-bang-humans_1589355.png" --- > [“In the afterglow of the Big Bang, humans spread in waves across the universe, sprawling and brawling and breeding and dying and evolving. There were wars, there was love, there was life and death. Minds flowed together in great rivers…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/in-the-afterglow-of-the-big-bang-humans-spread-in-waves-across-the/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/dac/stephen-baxter-15017_across-the-universe_in-the-afterglow-of-the-big-bang-humans_1589355.png) ## Other authors on Across the universe - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b005/author-beth-revis-17528.jpg) Beth Revis 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/across-the-universe/beth-revis/) ## More by Stephen Baxter > [We seem to be young, in a very old Galaxy. We're like kids tiptoeing through a ruined mansion.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/we-seem-to-be-young-in-a-very-old-galaxy-we-re-like-kids-tiptoeing/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“Look, whatever hayseed laws you pass in Who-Knows-What -" "Hell-Knows-Where." "Don't amount to a hill of beans back here, as your type might say.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/look-whatever-hayseed-laws-you-pass-in-who-knows-what-hell-knows/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“She was capable of suffering – that was the price of sentience.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/she-was-capable-of-suffering-that-was-the-price-of-sentience/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“This is what I have learned, Malenfant. This is how it is, how it was, how it came to be.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/this-is-what-i-have-learned-malenfant-this-is-how-it-is-how-it-was/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“I have a vision of a Galaxy overrun by mankind from Core to rim. Of four hundred billion stars each enslaved to the rhythm…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/i-have-a-vision-of-a-galaxy-overrun-by-mankind-from-core-to-rim-of/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“Something had changed. History resumed.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/something-had-changed-history-resumed/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“ Per ardua ad astra. Through adversity to the stars.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/per-ardua-ad-astra-through-adversity-to-the-stars/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [A citizen of the Roman Empire, for example, would have placed less value on individual liberty in the modern Western sense than on collective…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/a-citizen-of-the-roman-empire-for-example-would-have-placed-less/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [The Long Earth is bountiful but not forgiving.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/the-long-earth-is-bountiful-but-not-forgiving/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“Every door I pass is one way. So I may as well look around, and see what there is beyond the next door, and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/every-door-i-pass-is-one-way-so-i-may-as-well-look-around-and-see/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [Imagine God inside your computer, your phone, everyone else's computer. Imagine someone who almost is the Black Corporation, with all its power and riches…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/imagine-god-inside-your-computer-your-phone-everyone-else-s-computer/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“We are all creatures of logic, at root. Of little switches turning on and off in our heads, metaphorically speaking.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/we-are-all-creatures-of-logic-at-root-of-little-switches-turning-on/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“...the story of colonial-era America, rerun across an infinite frontier...All of which was fine, until the day you needed root-canal dentistry. Or your e-book…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/the-story-of-colonial-era-america-rerun-across-an-infinite-frontier/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [Authority. The antithesis of science.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/authority-the-antithesis-of-science/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) > [“Colonists of, ah, Per Ardua, meet your autonomous colonisation unit!”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/stephen-baxter/colonists-of-ah-per-ardua-meet-your-autonomous-colonisation-unit/) [Stephen Baxter](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/stephen-baxter/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/across-the-universe/stephen-baxter/#itemlist", "name": "1 Across the universe Quotes By Stephen Baxter", "numberOfItems": 1, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“In the afterglow of the Big Bang, humans spread in waves across the universe, sprawling and brawling and breeding and dying and evolving. There were wars, there was love, there was life and death. Minds flowed together in great rivers of consciousness, or shattered in sparkling droplets. There was immortality to be had, of a sort, a continuity of identity through replication and confluence across billions upon billions of years. Everywhere they found life. Nowhere did they find mind—save what they brought with them or created—no other against which human advancement could be tested. With time, the stars died like candles. But humans fed on bloated gravitational fat, and achieved a power undreamed of in earlier ages. They learned of other universes from which theirs had evolved. Those earlier, simpler realities too were empty of mind, a branching tree of emptiness reaching deep into the hyperpast. It is impossible to understand what minds of that age—the peak of humankind, a species hundreds of billions of times older than humankind—were like. They did not seek to acquire, not to breed, not even to learn. They had nothing in common with us, their ancestors of the afterglow. Nothing but the will to survive. And even that was to be denied them by time. The universe aged: indifferent, harsh, hostile, and ultimately lethal. There was despair and loneliness. There was an age of war, an obliteration of trillion-year memories, a bonfire of identity. There was an age of suicide, as the finest of humanity chose self-destruction against further purposeless time and struggle. The great rivers of mind guttered and dried. But some persisted: just a tributary, the stubborn, still unwilling to yield to the darkness, to accept the increasing confines of a universe growing inexorably old. And, at last, they realized that this was wrong. It wasn't supposed to have been like this. Burning the last of the universe's resources, the final down-streamers—dogged, all but insane—reached to the deepest past. And—oh. Watch the Moon, Malenfant. Watch the Moon. 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