Jack McDevitt Quotes
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How does it happen that the most intractable types always rise to the top?
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'I suspect we would be wise,' he said without looking up, 'to avoid declaring what God will or will not allow.'
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So we have progressed to the point where we can move politicians around faster than light. I'm not sure I see the advantage.
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Technological civilizations don’t last long. You're all right until you get a printing press. Then a race starts between technology and common sense. And maybe technology always wins.
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At night the sea is very loud,And voices ride the tide.At another time, in another place,Beneath the silent moon,We laughed together.
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'I'm not optimistic,' he said. 'The issue clearly flies in the face of the First Amendment. People have a right to tell kids whatever they want about religion.''Do they have a right to push human sacrifice?''Of course not, Mac. But this isn’t human sacrifice. It’s just a church school.''I'm not sure the effect isn’t similar.'
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Truth is slippery, not because it is difficult to grasp, but because we prefer our preconceptions, our beliefs, our myths.
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There is no justice. There are occasional acts of vengeance, or regret, but there’s no real justice. In the natural scheme of things, it is not possible.
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Lasker mouthed, 'Trust him,' and Max sighed. Trust a lawyer? It flew in the face of his most cherished principles.
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There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders.
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'We are not a debating club,' Franklin said. 'Our goal is to get at the truth, where that is possible.'
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When do we reach a point where people become responsible for their own actions?
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'The media have gone berserk.''The media always go berserk. A kid falls off a bike in Montana, they’re all over it. Until something else happens.'
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The problem is that too often the only people who can act don’t want change. Power doesn’t so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.
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MacAllister commented recently that Plato was right, that democracy is mob rule, that the voters can be counted on consistently to find the candidate with the fewest scruples and put him in office.
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Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.
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Yes, it was not journalism’s finest hour. But, MacAllister often argued, it never had been.
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The beginning of wisdom is to admit to being inept. We’re all a bit slow. We have our moments, but in the end, we have to resort to bumbling through. It is what makes conviction so egregious.
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A man without money is a bow without an arrow.
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An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.
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Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely good news.
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Mac continued to write scathing commentary on assorted hypocrisies in high places and low, without which hypocrisies, he cheerfully conceded, civilized life would be impossible.
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The kids were both adolescents, at that happy stage where they could simultaneously make him confident about the future while they were sabotaging the present.
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Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend.