First rule of government of the people, by the people, for the people: Never tell the people!
In my life I have found two things of priceless worth: learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possibly have the same lasting value.
That suggested two possibilities. It was either too unintelligent to understand him – or it was very intelligent indeed, with its own powers of choice and volition. In that case, he must treat it as an equal. Even then he might underestimate it – but it would bear him no resentment, for conceit was not a vice from which robots often suffered.
We’re particularly anxious to get our hands on Pioneer 10 – the first man-made object to escape from the Solar System.
On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples: he shrank from diverting its course.
The toolmakers had been remade by their own tools.
Do you believe in ghosts, Dim?” “Certainly not: but like every sensible man, I’m afraid of them. Why do you ask?
No group can survive, let alone thrive, unless what is good for the overall community is more important than individual freedom. Take, for example, resource allocation. How can anyone with any intelligence possibly justify, in terms of the overall community, the accumulation and hoarding of enormous material assets by a few individuals when others do not even have food, clothing, and other essentials?” In.
But there was no substitute for reality; one should beware of imitations.
No one worried except a few philosophers. The race was too intent upon savoring its new-found freedom to look beyond the pleasures of the present. Utopia was here at last: its novelty had not yet been assailed by the supreme enemy of all Utopias – boredom. Perhaps.
Historically, both fear and public opinion were notoriously unconcerned about morality.
Ladies and gentlemen, those flames from the port engines are perfectly normal. The stewardess will be coming around in a moment to serve coffee, tea, or milk. I’m sorry we don’t have anything stronger on this flight – regulations don’t permit it.
He knew now that when power and ambition and curiosity were satisfied, there still were left the longings of the heart.
Often we had no choice: we couldn’t reform the whole world. And didn’t somebody once say ‘Politics is the art of the possible’?” “Quite true – which is why only second-rate minds go into it. Genius likes to challenge the impossible.
Afrikaans is one of the world’s best languages in which to curse; even when spoken politely, it can bruise innocent bystanders.
The origin of the universe might be forever unknown, but all that had happened after obeyed the laws of physics.
They could never guess that their minds were being probed, their bodies mapped, their reactions studied, their potentials evaluated.
It goes on forever and forever, and perhaps Something made it. But how you can believe that Something has a special interest in us and our miserable little world – that just beats me.
Whatever their origin, the human race was fortunate to have seen such a wonder; it could exist for only a brief moment of time in the history of the Solar System.
Think of such civilizations, far back in time against the fading afterglow of creation, masters of a universe so young that life as yet had come only to a handful of worlds. Theirs would have been a loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and finding none to share their thoughts.