Brains don’t exactly run in that family—they sort of dribble slowly away. - John Barnes

Finally I asked, “Um, Tom—are the uh, Alien Artifacts really art, or did you just say that to hassle Mother?”
“They have to be art. Remember the First Law of Anthropology: if they’re doing something you don’t understand, it’s either an isolated lunatic, a religious ritual, or art.”

Almost every culture in the Thousand Cultures had some wisdom literature, and much of it was the same between any two cultures. . . . Cultures tend to be alike in much of what they think are the basic virtues, but one of the ones they are most alike in, though it rarely appears in their book of wisdom, is: Distrust strangers, fear foreigners, dread novelty.

There is a saying among those of us who have careers with the Council of Humanity that skiers, cooks, painters, and diplomats must work with what is in front of them.