People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you? - Isaac Asimov

people sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix the Cities because they don’t know how to fix themselves.

Books ... hold within them the gathered wisdom of humanity, the collected knowledge of the world's thinkers, the amusement and excitement built up by the imaginations of brilliant people. Books contain humor, beauty, wit, emotion, thought, and, indeed, all of life. Life without books is empty.

Trantor was a world in dregs and rebirth. Set like a faded jewel in the midst of the bewildering crowd of suns at the center of the Galaxy — in the heaps and clusters of stars piled high with aimless prodigality — it alternately dreamed of past and future.