David Brin Quotes

How strange. Humans always seem so much in control. Is it just a grand act, to fool both others and themselves?

Moralists can always justify going outside the law when it suits their sense of righteous timing.

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

What are the most common traits of nearly all forms of mental illness?” The answer? Nearly all sufferers lack — flexibility — to be able to change your opinion or course of action, if shown clear evidence you were wrong. satiability — the ability to feel satisfaction if you actually get what you said you wanted, and to transfer your strivings to other goals. extrapolation — an ability to realistically assess the possible consequences of your actions and to empathize, or guess how another person might think or feel. This answer crosses all boundaries of culture, age, and language. When a person is adaptable and satiable, capable of realistic planning and empathizing with his fellow beings, those problems that remain turn out to be mostly physiochemical or behavioral. What is more, this definition allows a broad range of deviations from the norm — the very sorts of eccentricities suppressed under older worldviews. So far so good. This is, indeed, an improvement. But where, I must ask, does ambition fit under this sweeping categorization? When all is said and done, we remain mammals. Rules can be laid down to keep the game fair. But nothing will ever entirely eliminate that will, within each of us, to win.

In this universe, the trickiest challenge of all is survival.

As a species, she reflected, Homo Sapiens had never truly gotten beyond the bounds of the tribe. The history of the last hundred thousand years had shown how cleverly they could adapt to larger demands. Under pressure of necessity they formed villages, towns, cities, nations. Yet, they saved their true warmth and fervent emotion for a close circle of friends and relatives. They would die to preserve the tribe, the family, the neighborhood. Appeals to larger issues worked only by tapping the subtle, deeper well-springs.

Maia lifted her gaze to watch low clouds briefly occult a brightly speckled, placid sea, its green shoals aflicker with silver schools of fish and the flapping shadows of hovering swoop-birds. The variegated colors were lush, voluptuous. Mixing with scents carried by the moist, heavy wind, they made a stew for the senses, spiced with fecund exudates of life.
The beauty was heavy-handed, adamantly consoling. She got the point—that life goes on.

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.

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.

Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable — and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach.

The problem with thinking about plausible conspiracies was that the mind quickly gorged on every correlation, turning each one into a glaring likelihood

Every marvel of our age arose out of the critical give and take of an open society. No other civilization ever managed to incorporate this crucial innovation, weaving it into daily life. And if you disagree with this ... say so!

One of life’s joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks...who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it.

nous pouvons nous doter de garanties constitutionnelles, établir une stricte répartition des pouvoirs, mais de telles mesures ne prennent un sens que lorsque les citoyens assurent que ces garde-fous soient respectés. Or, ceux qui ont soif de puissance et d’argent sont sans cesse à l’affût d’un moyen de violer les lois ou de les tourner à leur avantage.

I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings.