To the general public he is most known for the novel, The Time Traveler. However he also produced a popularly acclaimed piece of work, The Outline of History - Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. The few pages that I have read clearly identify Wells as not only a litterary marvel, but an astute pupil of science and the world around him.
Below I have provided a few quotes from volume IV, The Outline of History - Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. If you ever gain the opportunity to get your hands on a copy I would highly recommend reading it!
Video Link: H.G. Wells - Time Traveler (Hulu)
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Quotes from the book The Outline of History Volume IV:
"While the mechanical revolution which the growth of physical science has brought about was destroying the ancient social classification of the civilized state which had been evolved through thousands of years, and producing new possibilities and new ideals of a righteous human community and a righteous world order, a change at least as great and novel was going on in the field of religious thought. That same growth of scientific knowledge from which sprang the mechanical revolution was the moving cause of these religious disturbances."
----pg 1106
"Many men and women are still living who can remember the dismay and distress amoung ordinary intelligent people in the Western communities as the invincible case of the biologists and geologists against the orthodox Christians cosmogony unfolded itself. The minds of many resisted the new knowledge instictively and irrationally."
----pg 1110
"The Lord hath delivered him into my hands'. He was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor; but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth." ----pg 1111
"The mechanical revolution was given constantly more powerful (and expensive) weapons by land and sea, and more rapid methods of transport; and making it more and more impossible to carry on warefare without a complete dislocation of the economic life of the community. Even the foreign offices felt the fear of war."
----pg 1169