David Brin quotes - page 3

Survivalists. Gordon felt a wave of revulsion. (David Brin)
It also became clear why the nations were expected to commence major space enterprises. Henceforth, the raw materials for industrial civilization were to be taken from Earth's lifeless sisters, not the mother world. All mines currently being gouged through Terra's crust were to be phased out within a generation and no new ones started. Henceforth, Earth must be preserved for the real treasures-its species-and man would have to look elsewhere for mere baubles like gold or platinum or iron. View quote
David Brin
Had I been wrong, this would still have been the honorable thing to do. I am very glad, however, to find out that I was right. View quote
David Brin
It was silly to suppose that trials only hardened men, automatically making them wise. He knew many who were stupid, arrogant, and mean, in spite of having suffered. View quote
David Brin
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. View quote
David Brin
It was better to imagine a sacrifice being for something. View quote
David Brin
Maia recognized a look of true religion in the other woman's eyes. A version and interpretation that conveniently justified what had already been decided. View quote
David Brin
The notions she fought with needed more than the simple algebra she'd been grudgingly taught at Lamai Hold. More and more she resented how they had robbed her of this, arguably her one talent, driving her from math and other abstractions by the simple expedient of making them seem boring. View quote
David Brin
He was, after all, a diplomat, and understood that the best and firmest deals are based on open self-interest. View quote
David Brin
Every marvel of our age arose out of the critical give and take of an open society. View quote
David Brin
The same was true of the most popular girls. They had no empathy, no compassion for more normal kids. (David Brin)
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. View quote
David Brin
Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can't afford anymore. View quote
David Brin
Maia lifted her gaze to watch low clouds briefly occult a brightly speckled, placid sea, its green shoals aflicker with silver schools of fish and the flapping shadows of hovering swoop-birds. The variegated colors were lush, voluptuous. Mixing with scents carried by the moist, heavy wind, they made a stew for the senses, spiced with fecund exudates of life. The beauty was heavy-handed, adamantly consoling. She got the point-that life goes on. View quote
David Brin
We are programmed to find sex pleasurable for one simple reason-because animals who mate have offspring. Those who do not mate have none. Traits that result in successful reproduction get reinforced and passed on. Evolution is that simple. It is therefore useless to bemoan as evil the fact that men tend toward aggression. Among our ancestors, aggression often helped males have more offspring than their competitors. "Good” and "evil” had little to do with it. That is, until we reached consciousness, at which point, good and evil became pertinent indeed! Behaviors which might be excusable in dumb beasts can seem perverted, criminal, when performed by thinking beings. Just because a trait is "natural” does not oblige us to keep it. View quote
David Brin
As in elections, the law pretended universal rights, while securing the interests of powerful houses. View quote
David Brin
In the end, both extremes had more in common with each other than either did with the middle. View quote
David Brin
It could be worse. I can't think how right now, but I'm sure it could be worse. View quote
David Brin
Apocalypses, apparently, are subject to fashion like everything else. What terrifies one generation can seem obsolete and trivial to the next. Take our modern attitude toward war. Most anthropologists now think this activity was based originally on theft and rape-perhaps rewarding enterprises for some caveman or Viking, but no longer either sexy or profitable in the context of nuclear holocaust! Today, we look back on large-scale warfare as an essentially silly enterprise. View quote
David Brin
Wisdom. No match for the troublemaker Curiosity. View quote
David Brin
This is a lovely world,” he sighed. "And yet it has suffered horror. Sometimes, so-called civilization seems bent on destroying those very things which it is sworn to protect. (David Brin)
We are having extreme difficulty with local gangs of "Survivalists.” Fortunately, these infestations of egotists are mostly too paranoid to band together. They're as much trouble to each other as to us, I suppose. Still, they are becoming a real problem. View quote
David Brin
It's magic,” the chief cook concluded, in awe. ”No, not magic,” the ship's doctor replied. "It's much more. It's mathematics. View quote
David Brin
He read about humanity's age-old racial struggles. Had it really been less than half a millennium since humans contrived gigantic, fatuous lies about each other simply because of pigment shades, and killed millions because they believed their own lies? View quote
David Brin
It was a queer, disturbing instant of recognition. We all create monsters in our minds. The only important difference may be which of us let our monsters become real. View quote
David Brin