Jack McDevitt quotes - page 4

Ev was a careful man, a model of caution. He took pride in not committing to a view until all the facts were in. Which meant, of course, that he was never quite on board. Or in opposition. (Jack McDevitt)
If you want creative and successful children, resign yourself to jousting with rebels. View quote
Jack McDevitt
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. View quote
Jack McDevitt
A child's mind is open to learn, and it is a cruel and heartless thing to fill it with myth disguised as history, to impose upon it a bogus lifelong perspective, and close it up again, leaving it proof against common sense and all argument. Surely, if there is a hell, people who do this are the ones who will get their tickets punched. A judgment by the God who devised the quantum system should be considerably different from the one the Reverend Koestler envisions. I gave you a sky full of stars, and you never raised your eyes. I gave you a brain, and you never used it. View quote
Jack McDevitt
He took particular delight in neutralizing those who desperately needed to be neutralized, those overblown, self-important, arrogant half-wits who were always running about dictating behavior, morals, and theology to everyone else. And he never looked back. View quote
Jack McDevitt
He'd grown a mustache since Randall had last seen him. It was hard to understand why: He looked devious enough without it. View quote
Jack McDevitt
And because she so desperately wanted it to be true, she knew she could not manage an objective judgment. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Few of the virtues are really useful. Fidelity leads to lost opportunity, truth-telling to injured feelings, charity to additional solicitations. The least productive, and possibly the most overrated, is faith. The faithful deny reason, close their minds to the evidence of their senses, and remain unfailingly optimistic in the face of disaster. They inevitably get just what they deserve. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Most government and corporate leaders would have trouble getting people to follow them out of a burning building. One way you can tell the worst of them is that they talk about leadership a lot. I doubt Winston Churchill ever used the word. Or, for that matter, Attila the Hun. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Truth is slippery, not because it is difficult to grasp, but because we prefer our preconceptions, our beliefs, our myths. View quote
Jack McDevitt
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. (Jack McDevitt)
Lasker mouthed, "Trust him,” and Max sighed. Trust a lawyer? It flew in the face of his most cherished principles. View quote
Jack McDevitt
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. View quote
Jack McDevitt
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. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Her experience had taught her that people who insisted on having others recognize their outstanding qualities usually didn't have any. View quote
Jack McDevitt
It's all PR,” said Hutchins. "If we ever produced a person who was unrelentingly honest, everybody would want him dead. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Never confuse perfection with production. People who don't make mistakes aren't doing anything. View quote
Jack McDevitt
Organized mayhem,” Nick commented, "seems to be the chief preoccupation of intelligent species everywhere. View quote
Jack McDevitt
It had occurred to Rimford, at about the time he approached fifty, that the chief drawback in contemplating the enormous gulfs of time and space that constitute the bricks and mortar of the cosmologist is that one acquires a dismaying perception of the handful of years allotted a human being. View quote
Jack McDevitt
But the old man had provided his kids with one priceless gift: He'd encouraged them to read, and he didn't bother too much about the content, subscribing to the theory that good books ultimately speak for themselves. View quote
Jack McDevitt
We're talking about something we all want very much to find. And that automatically makes Ed's conclusions suspect. (Jack McDevitt)
If some of the current politicians had been around a few thousand years ago,” she'd said, "we never would have gotten out of Africa. Boats cost too much. View quote
Jack McDevitt
During his sixty-odd years, he had found there were as many louts in the patrician classes as there were ignoramuses farther down the social spectrum. View quote
Jack McDevitt
The invention of the printing press probably marks the beginning of the decline of civilization. Once you have it, science follows close behind. Next thing you know the idiots have better weaponry. Then atom bombs. Meantime, social organization becomes increasingly dependent on technology, which becomes increasingly vulnerable to error or sabotage. If we can judge by our own experience, it looks as if you get the printing press, then about a thousand years. After that it's back to the trees. View quote
Jack McDevitt
We can create the appearance of knowledge, the illusion of knowing how to grapple with a problem. Far too many educational systems have done exactly that. The result is generations of mouthpieces who can pour forth approved responses to programmed stimuli that contribute nothing to rational discussion. Dogma is for those who only wish to be comfortable. Catechisms are for cowards; commandments, for control freaks who have so little respect for their species that they are driven to appeal to a higher power to keep everyone in line. View quote
Jack McDevitt