Quotes of Note: Isaac Asimov, "Foundation" I

Quotes of note from Foundation by Isaac Asimov:

(Page numbers gleaned from the March 1983 Ballantine mass-market paperback.)

"[C]hildishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a child." (p. 5)

"[P]sychohistory [is] that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social and economic stimuli... ." (p. 14)

"A further necessary assumption is that the human conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in order that its reactions be truly random... ." (p. 14)

"[P]sychohistory is a statistical science and cannot predict the future of a single man with any accuracy." (p. 21)

"Calculations upon one man mean nothing." (p. 21)

"Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty." (p. 23)

"[T]he overall history of the human race [can] be changed ... with great difficulty." (pp. 24-25)

"The psychohistoric trend of a planet-full of people contains a huge inertia. To be changed it must be met with something possessing a similar inertia. Either as many people must be concerned, or if the number of people be relatively small, enormous time for change must be allowed." (p. 25)

"The fall of Empire ... is a massive thing, however, and not easily fought. It is dictated by a rising bureaucracy, a receding initiative, a freezing of caste, a damming of curiosity—a hundred other factors. It has been going on ... for centuries, and it is too majestic and massive a movement to be stopped." (p, 27)

"The sum of human knowing is beyond any one man; any thousand men." (p. 28)

"We're all scholars more or less." (p. 43)

"Encyclopedias don't win wars." (p. 47)

"[W]hat ... made physical scientists such poor administrators ... might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people." (p. 50)

"A great psychologist ... could unravel human emotions and human reactions sufficiently to be able to predict broadly the historical sweep of the future." (p. 55)

Things were different in the old great days. We aren't the men we used to be. (p. 60, paraphrased)

"Violence ... is the last refuge of the incompetent." (p. 65)

"[P]ure deduction is found wanting. ... [W]hat is needed is a little sprinkling of common sense." (p. 67)

"We cannot stop the Fall. We do not wish to, for ... culture has lost whatever virility and worth it once had." (p. 74)

"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for sublety." (p. 89)

"Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning." (p. 97)