David Brin Quotes
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Words penetrated the tank from the outer room. They were tantalizing, like those ghosts of meaning in a great symphony-hinting that the composer had caught a glimpse of something notes could only vaguely convey and words could never even approach.
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Intelligence is loose in the galaxy. Power is in our hands, for better or worse. We can modify Nature’s rules, if we dare, but we cannot ignore her lessons.
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Anyone who tries to predict the future is inevitably a fool. Present company included. A prophet without a sense of humor is just stupid.
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What hope has any endeavor which is based on hate and fear?
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I’m learning, Maia thought. They keep making mistakes and I keep getting stronger.At this rate, someday I may actually gain control over my life.
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We can’t save the world without food. Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists.
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Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.
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History and geology show what an eyeblink it’s been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.
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What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him?Probably either a professional or a patriot, Alex thought. Or, worse, both.
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Of course we can establish constitutional checks and balances, but those won’t mean a thing unless citizens make sure the safeguards are taken seriously. The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage.
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There was one exception to the rule that all our foes have committed the Decadence Assumption. Ho Chi Minh never underestimated America. His avowed hero was George Washington and he remained in awe of the U.S., all his life. He remains the only enemy leader who ever defeated us at war, and then only because our hubris (not decadence) got the better of us.
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How far do we owe loyalty to our creators’ dream? When have we earned the right to dream for ourselves?
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Survivalists. Gordon felt a wave of revulsion.
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What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?
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Ideologies are too seductive anyway. It does a man good to see things from a different point of view.
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Naroin stopped, shook her head. 'Take it from an experienced hand, child. It’s no good blamin’ yourself for what you couldn’t prevent. Not so long as you tried.'Maia’s lips pressed together. That was exactly what she had been telling herself. From the look in Naroin’s eyes, it didn’t get much more believable as you got older.
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I’d rather be dead than so suspicious I can’t trust anybody.
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Knowledge isn’t restrained by the limits of Malthus. Information doesn’t need topsoil to grow in, only freedom. Given eager minds and experimentation, it feeds itself like a chain reaction.
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'You think I'm kidding?' the pilot asked.'No, we think you're crazy.'
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How can we set up a system which encourages individuals to strive and excel, and yet which shows some compassion to the weak, and weeds out madmen and tyrants?
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A hallmark of sanity, Alex, is the courage to face even unpleasant points of view.
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The Union will awaken. It always has. We always will.
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Loneliness, her arch enemy, never seemed content.
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There was that word quaint again. It seemed to refer patronizingly to anything simple or backward, from the viewpoint of a city-bred tourist.