When they sat down at a small table and punched in their orders, - Isaac Asimov

Truth is a discredited commodity among diplomats.

Eventually, it had to be accepted that God had created invisible stars and this was the very first hint that perhaps the Universe had not been created with human welfare as its primary object (a point I have never seen stressed in histories of science)

Frustration of my plans to lighten the disaster will convince people that the future holds no promise for them. Already they recall the lives of their grandfathers with envy. They will see that political revolutions and trade stagnations will increase. The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action they will hasten the decay of the worlds.