In politics, wishful thinking just gives the wolves a license to howl. - Edgar Pangborn

If you’re interested in ethics, you could do worse than think in terms of geological time.

I’ve watched human beings fool around with love. Love of self mostly, but also love of place, work, ideas; love of friends, of male and female, parent and child. I can’t think of any human illusions more comic than those of love.

In intelligent life, human or Martian, maybe there has always been a genuine division between those who honor the individuality of others and those who are driven to control and pervert it.