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David Brin
149 quotes
“They saw the end coming, he thought, looking down the file of awful figures. But they were dead wrong about the reasons why. They assumed only gods had the power to wreak such havoc on their world, but people caused the devastation here. Alex felt compassion for the ancient Pasquans—but a superior sort nevertheless. In blaming gods, they had conveniently diverted censure from the real culprit. The designer of weapons. The feller of trees. The destroyer. Man himself.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prison for the crime of puberty—that was how secondary school had seemed, when he really thought back on it.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Daisy had learned not to pay much heed to techno-fads. To her fell the task of preserving as much as possible, so that when humanity finally did fall, it wouldn’t take everything else to the grave with it.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On this occasion, despite the wind and sparkling stars, they looked just like huge chunks of stone, pathetically chiseled by desperate folk to resemble stern gods. People did bizarre things when they were afraid...as most men and women had been for nearly all the time since the species evolved.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The lesson they took home with them was simple; it takes a full belly before a man or woman gives a tinker’s damn about anything as large as a planet.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Huh,” Sepak thought, marveling how much one could learn by just sitting still and observing. It wasn’t a skill one learned in the frenetic pace of modern society.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him? Probably either a professional or a patriot, Alex thought. Or, worse, both.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Knowledge isn’t restrained by the limits of Malthus. Information doesn’t need topsoil to grow in, only freedom. Given eager minds and experimentation, it feeds itself like a chain reaction.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can’t afford anymore.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look at all the happiest, sanest people you've known, Nelson. Really listen to them. I bet you'll find they don’t fear a little inconsistency or uncertainty now and then. Oh, they try always to be true to their core beliefs, to achieve their goals and keep their promises. Still, they also avoid too much rigidity, forgiving the occasional contradiction and unexpected thought. They are content to be many.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nelson replayed his last musings to himself, and silently laughed. Listen to you! Jen was right. You're a born philosopher. In other words, full of shit.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man talked, but somehow nothing he said seemed to make any sense.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History and geology show what an eyeblink it’s been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beware of assumptions that seem “obvious” in one decade. They may become quaint in the next.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some smart moves were little more than nicely padded traps.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Intelligence is loose in the galaxy. Power is in our hands, for better or worse. We can modify Nature’s rules, if we dare, but we cannot ignore her lessons.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At her station in life, wisdom dictated keeping a low profile. And yet...”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It could be worse. I can’t think how right now, but I’m sure it could be worse.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There was that word quaint again. It seemed to refer patronizingly to anything simple or backward, from the viewpoint of a city-bred tourist.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can’t fight biology. Only push at the rules, here and there.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Loneliness, her arch enemy, never seemed content.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Piss on the world, or it’ll piss on you.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What hope has any endeavor which is based on hate and fear?”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The heritage we give our children, and the myths we leave to sustain them, must work with the tug and press of life, or they will fail. Adaptability has to be enshrined alongside stability, or the ghost of Darwin will surely come back to haunt us, whispering in our ears the penalty of conceit. We wish our descendants happiness. But over time one criterion alone will judge our efforts. Survival.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom. No match for the troublemaker Curiosity.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is the continuation of existence, yet no thing endures. We are all patterns, seeking to propagate. Patterns which bring other patterns into being, then vanish, as if we’ve never been.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as “enlightenment.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But it’s not so hard, learning to picture yourself as part of a great chain. One that began long before you, and will go on long after.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All right,” she said. “You’ve convinced me. Men are good for something, after all.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How far do we owe loyalty to our creators’ dream? When have we earned the right to dream for ourselves?”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s magic,” the chief cook concluded, in awe. ”No, not magic,” the ship’s doctor replied. “It’s much more. It’s mathematics.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the end, both extremes had more in common with each other than either did with the middle.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is there an inverse relation between knowledge and wisdom? At times it seems the more we know, the less we understand. I am not the first to note this quandary. One scholar recently wrote, “Lysos and her followers chase the siren call of pastoralism, like countless romantics before them, idealizing a past Golden Age that never was, pursuing a serenity possible only in the imagination.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They say survival is Nature’s only form of flattery.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Naroin stopped, shook her head. “Take it from an experienced hand, child. It’s no good blamin’ yourself for what you couldn’t prevent. Not so long as you tried.” Maia’s lips pressed together. That was exactly what she had been telling herself. From the look in Naroin’s eyes, it didn’t get much more believable as you got older.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’d rather be dead than so suspicious I can’t trust anybody.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m learning, Maia thought. They keep making mistakes and I keep getting stronger. At this rate, someday I may actually gain control over my life.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought they were very good at what they did.” ”Of course they were good!” Brill glanced sharply. “The issue is what one chooses to be good at. The arts are fine, for hobbies. I play six instruments, myself. But they pose no great challenge to a mature mind.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A dragon’s inertia is not shifted by yanking its tail.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As in elections, the law pretended universal rights, while securing the interests of powerful houses.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is dangerous these days for a male to write even glancingly on feminist themes. Did anyone attack Margaret Atwood’s right to extrapolate religio-machismo in The Handmaid’s Tale? Women writers appear vouchsafed insight into the souls of men—credit that seldom flows the other way. It is a sexist and offensive assumption, which does not advance understanding.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is senseless to proclaim that it’s evil to make generalizations about groups. Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true—in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals. We have no right to pre-judge that a specific man can’t nurture, or a particular woman cannot fight.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If humanity has one majestic talent, it’s an almost infinite capacity to get used to the Next Big Thing…then take it for granted.”
David Brin (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source