And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you… - Isaac Asimov

Above all, never think you're not good enough. Never think that. In life people will take you at your own reckoning.

the credits still go — unproductively — to the armed forces and vital areas of the social good are allowed to deteriorate. That's what I call decay.

It had been a pretty good world, he thought. Not perfect, far from it, but good enough. Most people had been reasonably happy, most were prosperous, there was progress being made on all fronts — toward deeper scientific understanding, toward greater economic expansion, toward stronger global cooperation. The concept of war had come to seem quaintly medieval and the age-old religious bigotries were mostly obsolete, or so it had seemed to him. And now it was all gone, in one short span of hours, in a single burst of horrifying Darkness.

When one begins by expressing lack of competence in a given field, it usually implies that a flat opinion in that field will follow almost immediately