Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

— David Brin

David Brin Quotes

Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.

— David Brin

You don’t have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally!

— David Brin

The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.

— David Brin

It’s said that ‘power corrupts,’ but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

— David Brin

As sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. But science fiction has not been forgiven for its crap. The reason is that science fiction inherently distrusts the ‘eternal verities’ on which literature graduates base their doctoral dissertations. Literature departments were uncomfortable with that. But things change.

— David Brin

The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage.

— David Brin

Every time humans discovered a new resource, or technique for using mass and energy, one side effect has always been pollution. Why should the information age be any different from those of coal, petroleum, or the atom?

— David Brin

Men can be brilliant and strong, they whispered to one another. But men can be mad, as well. And the mad ones can ruin the world.

— David Brin

It was called ‘the Big Lie’ technique, Johnny. Just sound like you know what you’re talking about – as if you’re citing real facts. Talk very fast. Weave your lies into the shape of a conspiracy theory and repeat your assertions over and over again. Those who want an excuse to hate or blame – those with big but weak egos – will leap at a simple, neat explanation for the way the world is. Those types will never call you on the facts.

— David Brin

Deep down, most humans prefer living out their lives surrounded by comfortable certainties, guided by warm myths and metaphors, knowing that they’ll understand their children, and their children will understand them.

— David Brin

Science gives man what he needs, but magic gives man what he wants.

— David Brin

Someone once said that one measure of sentience was how much energy a sophont spent on matters other than survival. Fiben.

— David Brin

Magic and art arise from an egomaniac’s insistence that the artist is right, and the universe wrong.

— David Brin

Yet egotism can also be useful to ambitious creatures, driving their single-minded pursuit of success. Madness seems essential in order to be “great.

— David Brin

It wasn’t his place to judge the women. Theirs was the harder job, here in the wilderness. His tasks were simple – to hunt, fight, and if need be, to die. Theirs was to go on, whatever it took.

— David Brin

There was a time, in living memory, when this nation bestrode the planet like a titan.

— David Brin

Where is it written that one should only care about big things?

— David Brin

And yet we’ve flashed from caveman to world wrecker in just three hundred generations. One moment there are these barefoot Neolithic hunters, bickering over a frozen caribou carcass. Turn around, and their children’s children talk about tapping energy from pulsars.

— David Brin

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

— David Brin

June nodded. “Oh, now we know that. But then? The net was supposed to be their baby. Their tool! It would replace big banks as an instrument of control, above nations and governments. Above even money.

— David Brin
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