With the restriction of government to its proper sphere and its concentration into our organization, resulting in the liberation of man-power into we… - E.E. "Doc" Smith

Near them there crouched or huddled or lay at ease a many-tentacled creature indescribable to man. It was not like an octopus. Though spiny, it did not resemble at all closely a sea-cucumber. Nor, although it was scaly and toothy and wingy, was it, save in the vaguest possible way, similar to a lizard, a sea-serpent or a vulture. Such a description by negatives is, of course, pitifully inadequate; but, unfortunately, it is the best that can be done.

There has always been, and will always be, the problem of surviving the experience that any trained expert can handle ... when there hasn't been any first survivor to become an expert.

How could he explain beauty, or music, or art, to this . . . this matriarchal savage? How explain cerise to a man born blind? And above all, who had ever heard of having to explain to a woman — to any woman, anywhere in the whole macrocosmic universe — that she in particular was beautiful?