Charles Sheffield Quotes

He was a professional trouble-shooter. That was a fancy name for an idiot.

Nothing in life produce a more powerful joy than a near miss by the Angel of Death.

When a person was so consistently wrong, it was time to give up having opinions.

Logic was good, but too much logical analysis inhibited action. Darya had heard it seriously suggested that the original human cladeworld, Earth, had degenerated to an ineffectual backwater of a planet because computer trade-off analysis had increasingly been used as the basis for decision making. On purely logical grounds, no one would ever explore, invent, rejoice, sing, strive, fall in love, or take physical and psychological risks of any kind. Better to stay in bed in the morning; it was much safer.

One form of insanity bears the name curiosity.

He realized a profound truth: there is no one so generous as a bureaucrat spending other people’s money.

Didn’t anything scare the two aliens? Sometimes she wondered if humans were the only beings in the universe with a sense of cowardice (be charitable, and call it and instinct for self-preservation).

Trouble comes in a thousand different ways. Not usually anything you expect, either. That’s why it’s trouble.

His sin was something that scientists had done for thousands of years. Scientists didn’t usually change data, not unless they were outright charlatans. But when facts didn’t agree with theory, there was an awful temptation to find reasons for rejecting the offending data and and hanging on to the theory. Ptolemy had done it. Newton had done it. Darwin had done it. Einstein had done so explicitly.

How did you do that?" The Hymenopt inclined her head. "With respect, Professor Lang, great intellectual power, even at the level you possess it, is not always a substitute for humble practical experience.

Science wasn’t a show-business talent, conducted in large halls and decided by audience applause.

Theories were a dime a dozen. The partition that separated science and wishful thinking was evidence: observations and firm facts.

Professor Lang's important work, with all due respect, does not answer that question." The knife, sliding in hidden behind the compliment. "With all due respect" meant "with no respect at all.

Are we perhaps guilty of temporal chauvinism, believing that our own time is uniquely important, as all generation tend to think that their time is of unique importance?

To a logical entity, such as myself, the behavior of organic intelligences such as yourself, provides many anomalies. For example, the history of humanity, the species concerning which my data banks have most information, is replete with cases where humans, on little or no evidence, have believed in impossibilities. They have accepted the existence of a variety of improbable entities: of gods and demons, of fairies and elves, of 'good luck' charms, of magic potions, of curses and hexes and evil eyes."
"Tally, if you're going to blather about—"
"But at the same time, humans and other organic intelligences often seem unwilling to accept the implications and consequences of their own legitimate scientific theories.