David Brin Quotes

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world.

What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him?
Probably either a professional or a patriot, Alex thought. Or, worse, both.

Freedom was wonderful beyond relief. But with it came that bitch, Duty.

My old friend Pal had a philosophy: “When you lack understanding, or subtlety, you can still get your argument across with a monkey wrench.”

Blatant idiocies had been tried by early men and women—foolishness that would never have been considered by species aware of the laws of nature. Desperate superstitions had bred during the savage centuries. Styles of government, intrigues, philosophies were tested with abandon. It was almost as if Orphan Earth had been a planetary laboratory, upon which a series of senseless and bizarre experiments were tried.

Did you arrogantly expect that the entire universe was waiting upon man to arrive?

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.

I know you’re an unrepentant curmudgeon! You live to get a rise out of people, and someday your contrary habits will be your undoing.

How did he get away with pushing a book like this? How is it anyone ever believed him?
Gordon shrugged. It was called 'the Big Lie' technique, Johnny. Just sound like you know what you're talking about—as if you're reciting 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.

Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Buddha and countless other mystics, in countless cultures, have preached the same thing — that we all exist amid a blur of uncertainty. That one can never know complete truth about physical reality via our senses alone. Much is made of the differences between their systems... Socrates teaching reason, Buddha urging meditation, and Jesus prescribing faith. But what they all had in common was far more important. Each of those sage-prophets worried that the power of human egotism tends to make us lie to ourselves, leading to error, hypocrisy, and all too often, the rationalization of evil actions.

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Don’t assign to stupidity what might be due to ignorance. And try not to assume your opponent is the ignorant one — until you can show it isn’t you.

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.

The village is coming back, like it or not.

Analog, or Asimov's Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Fortunately, there is a famous inverse relation between fanaticism and competence.