Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. - Isaac Asimov

"A good reference book, the Columbia Encyclopedia. Best one-volume all-round reference in the world and more useful than the Britannica, even if it does waste an entry on Isaac Asimov."

"On whom?" asked Gonzalo.

"Asimov. Friend of mine. Science fiction writer and pathologically conceited. He carries a copy of the Encyclopedia to parties and says, 'Talking of concrete, the Columbia Encyclopedia has an excellent article on it only 249 pages after their article on me. Let me show you.' Then he shows them the article on himself."

I'm afraid you don't understand the situation. There's a good million of us here on Terminus, and not more than a hundred and fifty thousand are working directly on the Encyclopedia. To the rest of us, this is home. We were born here. We're living here. Compared with our farms and our homes and our factories, the Encyclopedia means little to us. We want them protected — ' He was shouted down. 'The Encyclopedia first,' ground out Crast. 'We have a mission to fulfil.' 'Mission, hell,' shouted Hardin. 'That might have been true fifty years ago. But this is a new generation.' 'That has nothing to do with it,' replied Pirenne. 'We are scientists.

What we gain in the straightaways, we lose in the roundabouts. That's the way the universe works. We've just got to fool it somehow.