He shames me for being what I am without fear of loss, when he is what he is without hope of gain. - Isaac Asimov

seems to me that the whole essence of Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was falling apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation – and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe.

Seldon, Hari — It is customary to think of Hari Seldon only in connection with psychohistory, to see him only as Mathematics and as social change personified. There is no doubt that he himself

Encouraged this for at no time in his formal writings did he give any hint as to how he came to solve the various problems of
Psychohistory. His leaps of thought might have all been plucked From

Air, for all he tells us. Nor does he tell us of the blind alleys

Into which he crept or the wrong turnings he may have made.

…As for his private life, it is a blank. Concerning his parent and Siblings,

We know a handful of factors, nor more. His only son,

Raych Seldon, is known to have been adopted, but how that

Came about is not known. Concerning his wife, we only

Know that she existed. Clearly, Seldon wanted to a cipher

Except where psychohistory was concerned. It is as though he felt — Or wanted it to be felt — that he did not live, he merely psychohistorified.

At least, I consider violence an uneconomical way of attaining an end.