Feet, for tens of thousands of years, had clogged and shuffled in the mud – and held down the minds which, for an equal time, had been fit for the co… - Isaac Asimov

Efficiency had been forced on Earth with increasing population. Two billion people, three billion, even five billion could be supported by the planet by progressive lowering of the standard of living. When the population reaches eight billion, however, semistarvation becomes too much like the real thing.

Darkness thickened and collapsed about him. Some of it never lifted again.

Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past — never on yourselves." His fists balled spasmodically. "It amounts to a diseased attitude — a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority.