Prelude To Foundation Quotes

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.

Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions—not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

I can't bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification...It's these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.

A great many things are possible.” And to himself he added: But not practical.

How harmful overspecialization is. It cuts knowledge at a million points and leaves it bleeding.

I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking.

Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural.

There is a longing for a supposedly simple and virtuous past that is almost universal among the people of a complex and vicious society.

Often, this has only meant a change in tyranny. In other words, one ruling class is replaced by another—sometimes by one that is more efficient and therefore still more capable of maintaining itself—while the poor and downtrodden remain poor and downtrodden or become even worse off.

It is not important what can or cannot be done. What is important is what people will or will not believe can be done.

Historians pick and choose and every one of them picks and chooses the same thing.

Can't you try>? However useless the effort may seem to you to be, have you anything better to do with your life? Have you some worthier goal? Have you a purpose that will justify you in your own eyes to some greater extent?

he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions—not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?

A mathematician, however, who could back his prophecy with mathematical formulas and terminology, might be understood by no one and yet believed by everyone.

The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.

There are many people, many worlds who believe in supernaturalism in one form or another... religion, if you like the word better. We may disagree with them in one way or another, but we are as likely to be wrong in our disbelief as they in their belief. In any case, there is no disgrace in such belief and my questions were not intended as insults.

if people believe this, they would act on that belief. Many a prophecy, by the mere force of its being believed, is transmuted

He clearly knew how dangerous it was to have an excited twelve-year-old handling a powerful weapon.

Dors muttered to him, “Stop studying humanity. Be aware of your surroundings.” “I’ll try.

When they sat down at a small table and punched in their orders,

If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.

They work off all their resentments, enjoy all the smug self-satisfaction a young revolutionary would have, and by the time they take their place in the Imperial hierarchy, they are ready to settle down into conformity and obedience.

Защо, зачуди се той, толкова много хора прекарват дните си, без да се опитат да открият отговори на вечните въпроси? Нима в живота има нещо по-вълнуващо от търсенето на отговори?

You're a Lousy dame, lady," said Raych. "I'm a Lousy dame with a quick knife, Raych, so get moving.

superluminal velocities

THE FOUNDATION NOVELS Prelude to Foundation Foundation Foundation and Empire Second Foundation Foundation’s Edge Forward the Foundation

There is nothing your knife handlers can do in the way of rioting and demonstrating that will have any permanent effect as long as, in the extremity, there is an army equipped with kinetic, chemical, and neurological weapons that is willing to use them against your people. You can get all the downtrodden and even all the respectables on your side, but you must somehow win over the security forces and the Imperial army or at least seriously weaken their loyalty to the rulers.

Dors shook her head. “I can’t bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification—even by other human beings. It’s these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.

I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people.” Amaryl said bitterly, “That’s because you’ve never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn’t smell a thing because it doesn’t affect you.

even if you have right on your side, even if justice thunders condemnation, it is usually the tyranny in existence that has the balance of force on its side.

the Emperor had had to remember to avoid making commitments of substance, while freely applying the lotion of words without substance.

You distrusted the Imperials too. Most human beings do these days, which is an important factor in the decay and deterioration of the Empire.

If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.

All knowledge is one,

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.

Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore.

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.

Oddity is in the mind of the receiver.

But I still can’t quite grasp what you’re telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people.” Amaryl said bitterly, “That’s because you’ve never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn’t smell a thing because it doesn’t affect you.

I can’t bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification—even by other human beings. It’s these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.

Not all persons would be equally believed, Demerzel. A mathematician, however, who could back his prophecy with mathematical formulas and terminology, might be understood by no one and yet believed by everyone.

How could any number of people—all together—know enough? It reminded Seldon of a puzzle that had been presented to him when he was young: Can you have a relatively small piece of platinum, with handholds affixed, that could not be lifted by the bare, unaided strength of any number of people, no matter how many? The answer was yes. A cubic meter of platinum weighs 22,420 kilograms under standard gravitational pull. If it is assumed that each person could heave 120 kilograms up from the ground, then 188 people would suffice to lift the platinum. —But you could not squeeze 188 people around the cubic meter so that each one could get a grip on it. You could perhaps not squeeze more than 9 people around it. And levers or other such devices were not allowed. It had to be “bare, unaided strength.” In the same way, it could be that there was no way of getting enough people to handle the total amount of knowledge required for psychohistory, even if the facts were stored in computers rather than in individual human brains. Only so many people could gather round the knowledge, so to speak, and communicate it.

Seldon, Hari—It is customary to think of Hari Seldon only in connection with psychohistory, to see him only as Mathematics and as social change personified. There is no doubt that he himself Encouraged this for at no time in his formal writings did he give any hint as to how he came to solve the various problems of Psychohistory. His leaps of thought might have all been plucked From Air, for all he tells us. Nor does he tell us of the blind alleys Into which he crept or the wrong turnings he may have made. …As for his private life, it is a blank. Concerning his parent and Siblings, We know a handful of factors, nor more. His only son, Raych Seldon, is known to have been adopted, but how that Came about is not known. Concerning his wife, we only Know that she existed. Clearly, Seldon wanted to a cipher Except where psychohistory was concerned. It is as though he felt-- Or wanted it to be felt—that he did not live, he merely psychohistorified.

However, we won’t be in the Imperial Sector long. —Seen enough?” And the holograph flickered out. Seldon said, “How much did this cost you?” “What’s the difference?” “It bothers me to be in your debt.” “Don’t worry about it. This is my choice.

The only trouble is,” said the Sister happily, “that every once in a while you have a very unusual one and you never forget it, but you never have it again either. I had one when I was nine—” Her expression suddenly lost its excitement and she said, “It’s a good thing. It teaches you the evanescence of things of the world.

 ‘One. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. “ ‘Two. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. “ ‘Three. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Dors shook her head. “I can’t bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification—even by other human beings. It’s these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.” “And other respectable people,” said Seldon, “who create these respectable people. These mutual animosities are as much a part of humanity—

There’s no question of your working out the entire future of the Galactic Empire, you know. You needn’t trace out in detail the workings of every human being or even of every world. There are merely certain questions you must answer: Will the Galactic Empire crash and, if so, when? What will be the condition of humanity afterward? Can anything be done to prevent the crash or to ameliorate conditions afterward? These are comparatively simple questions, it seems to me.

What’s stopping me is I’m a Dahlite, a heatsinker on Dahl. I don’t have the money to get an education and I can’t get the credits to get an education. A real education, I mean. All they taught me was to read and cipher and use a computer and then I knew enough to be a heatsinker. But I wanted more. So I taught myself.” “In some ways, that’s the best kind of teaching. How did you do that?” “I knew a librarian. She was willing to help me. She was a very nice woman and she showed me how to use computers for learning mathematics. And she set up a software system that would connect me with other libraries.

I still can't quite grasp what you are telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people." Amaryl said bitterly, "That's because you've never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn't smell a thing because it doesn't affect you." Dors said, “Mr. Amaryl, Dr. Seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. You must understand that. I am a historian, however. I know that it isn’t unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. There are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. It’s too bad.” Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It’s a lot worse than ‘too bad.’ It’s against everything decent and natural. We’re all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We’re all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren’t we?

Who would now be in a position to describe that which will one day do away with moral feelings and judgments! -however sure one may be that the foundations of the latter are all defective and their superstructure is beyond repair: their obligatory force must diminish from day to day, so long as the obligatory force of reason does not diminish! To construct anew the laws of life and action – for this task our sciences of physiology, medicine, sociology and solitude are not yet sufficiently sure of themselves: and it is from them that the foundation-stones of new ideals (if not the new ideals themselves) must come. So it is that, according to our taste and talent, we live an existence which is either a prelude or a postlude, and the best we can do in this interregnum is to be as far as possible our own reges and found little experimental states. We are experiments: let us also want to be them!

Who would now be in a position to describe that which will one day do away with moral feelings and judgments! ―however sure one may be that the foundations of the latter are all defective and their superstructure is beyond repair: their obligatory force must diminish from day to day, so long as the obligatory force of reason does not diminish! To construct anew the laws of life and action – for this task our sciences of physiology, medicine, sociology and solitude are not yet sufficiently sure of themselves: and it is from them that the foundation-stones of new ideals (if not the new ideals themselves) must come. So it is that, according to our taste and talent, we live an existence which is either a prelude or a postlude, and the best we can do in this interregnum is to be as far as possible our own reges and found little experimental states. We are experiments: let us also want to be them!

Two-fold Historical Origin of Good and Evil.—The notion of good and bad has a two-fold historical origin: namely, first, in the spirit of ruling races and castes. Whoever has power to requite good with good and evil with evil and actually brings requital, (that is, is grateful and revengeful) acquires the name of being good; whoever is powerless and cannot requite is called bad. A man belongs, as a good individual, to the "good" of a community, who have a feeling in common, because all the individuals are allied with one another through the requiting sentiment. A man belongs, as a bad individual, to the "bad," to a mass of subjugated, powerless men who have no feeling in common. The good are a caste, the bad are a quantity, like dust. Good and bad is, for a considerable period, tantamount to noble and servile, master and slave. On the other hand an enemy is not looked upon as bad: he can requite. The Trojan and the Greek are in Homer both good. Not he, who does no harm, but he who is despised, is deemed bad. In the community of the good individuals [the quality of] good[ness] is inherited; it is impossible for[82] a bad individual to grow from such a rich soil. If, notwithstanding, one of the good individuals does something unworthy of his goodness, recourse is had to exorcism; thus the guilt is ascribed to a deity, the while it is declared that this deity bewitched the good man into madness and blindness.—Second, in the spirit of the subjugated, the powerless. Here every other man is, to the individual, hostile, inconsiderate, greedy, inhuman, avaricious, be he noble or servile; bad is the characteristic term for man, for every living being, indeed, that is recognized at all, even for a god: human, divine, these notions are tantamount to devilish, bad. Manifestations of goodness, sympathy, helpfulness, are regarded with anxiety as trickiness, preludes to an evil end, deception, subtlety, in short, as refined badness. With such a predisposition in individuals, a feeling in common can scarcely arise at all, at most only the rudest form of it: so that everywhere that this conception of good and evil prevails, the destruction of the individuals, their race and nation, is imminent.—Our existing morality has developed upon the foundation laid by ruling races and castes.

The Empire functions beyond mere laws,” Paulus continued. “An equally strong foundation is the network of alliances, favors, and religious propaganda. Beliefs are more powerful than facts.

Again, all over the Galaxy trade is stagnating. People think that because there are no rebellions at the moment and because things are quiet, that all is well and that the difficulties of the past few centuries are over. However, political infighting, rebellions, and unrest are all signs of a certain vitality, too. But now there’s a general weariness. It’s quiet, not because people are satisfied and prosperous, but because they’re tired and have given up.

The rate of technological advance has been slowing for centuries and is down to a crawl now. In some cases, it has stopped altogether. Is this something you’ve noticed? After all, you’re a mathematician.’ ‘I can’t say I’ve given the matter any thought.’ ‘No one does. It’s accepted. Scientists are very good these days at saying that things are impossible, impractical, useless. They condemn any speculation at once.

but in this Galaxy, rationality doesn't always triumph.

Emotions, my dear Seldon, are a powerful engine of human action, far more powerful than human beings themselves realize, and you cannot know how much can be done with the merest touch and how reluctant I am to do it.

It does not actually take much to rouse resentment and latent fear of women in any man. It may be a biological matter that I, as a robot, cannot fully understand.

Although Kuyper, Bavinck, and Hepp attempted to distance themselves from scholasticism and classicism, nevertheless, Van Til believed that they never overcame abstraction. That is to say, although they gave God the strategic place in their system—the starting point and foundation of knowing, understanding, and interpreting all things—nevertheless, they permitted the non-Christian to define the terms they adopted as God’s terms. Hence, in the realm of natural and general revelation, God is merely the prelude and the appendix in the structure; rather, according to Van Til, he must be the Being who defines the entire structure. Only in this context can the structure be properly holistic and concrete.

The chronological order of the books, in terms of future history (and not of publication date), is as follows: The Complete Robot (1982). This is a collection of thirty-one robot short stories published between 1940 and 1976 and includes every story in my earlier collection I, Robot (1950). Only one robot short story has been written since this collection appeared. That is “Robot Dreams,” which has not yet appeared in any Doubleday collection. The Caves of Steel (1954). This is the first of my robot novels. The Naked Sun (1957). The second robot novel. The Robots of Dawn (1983). The third robot novel. Robots and Empire (1985). The fourth robot novel. The Currents of Space (1952). This is the first of my Empire novels. The Stars, Like Dust—(1951). The second Empire novel. Pebble in the Sky (1950). The third Empire novel. Prelude to Foundation (1988). This is the first Foundation novel (although it is the latest written, so far). Foundation (1951). The second Foundation novel. Actually, it is a collection of four stories, originally published between 1942 and 1944, plus an introductory section written for the book in 1949. Foundation and Empire (1952). The third Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1945. Second Foundation (1953). The fourth Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1948 and 1949. Foundation’s Edge (1982). The fifth Foundation novel. Foundation and Earth (1983). The sixth Foundation novel.

(If something quite accidental can easily become viewed as a tradition and be made unbreakable or nearly so, thought Seldon, would that be a law of psychohistory?

So 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.

So you insult us by asking about our religion, as though we have ever called on a mysterious, insubstantial spirit to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

All history shows that we do not learn from the lessons of the past.

I tell you. I want to go back to Helicon and take up a study of the mathematics of turbulence, which was my Ph.D. problem, and forget I ever saw—or thought I saw—that turbulence gave an insight into human society.

I can’t believe that,” said Seldon. “I should think that new copies would be made of any record in danger of withering. How could you let knowledge disappear?” “Undesired knowledge is useless knowledge,” said Dors. “Can you imagine all the time, effort, and energy expended in a continual refurbishing of unused data? And that wastage would grow steadily more extreme with time.

Go on.” “The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.

I have given no hostages to fortune.

placing his credit slip in a small pocket

They, however, and anyone else I can think of want you in order to strengthen their own wealth and power, while I have no ambitions at all, except for the good of the Galaxy.

There’s a bit of your psychohistory, Hari. Rule number 47,854: The downtrodden are more religious than the satisfied.

Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness.

public sex was frowned upon only when traffic was blocked.

There are no servants and none are at ease through the labor of others.

The navy is much larger and many times more expensive than it once was. The armed forces are much better-paid, in order to keep them quiet. Unrest, revolts, and minor blazes of civil war all take their toll.” “But it’s been quiet under Cleon. And we’ve had fifty years of peace.” “Yes, but soldiers who are well-paid would resent having that pay reduced just because there is peace. Admirals resist mothballing ships and having themselves reduced in rank simply because there is less for them to do. So 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. Don’t you?

obloquy

I can’t find you two even numbers that will yield an odd number as a sum, no matter how vitally you—or all the Galaxy—may need that odd number.

Dors Venabili had not eaten either and she seemed the most tense and unhappy of the three.

It does not actually take much to rouse resentment and latent fear of women in any man.

He moved away quickly, holding the neuronic whip in both hands now and shouting, “Hands up, Sergeant, or you’re gonna get it!

he would much prefer to see it done a week before his death rather than a week after.

Demerzel said, with the tone of respect that he carefully cultivated, “Hari Seldon? It is an unfamiliar name to me, Sire. Ought I to know of him?