Quotes from Second Foundation

“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware he is wise.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“...all the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy, until Hari Seldon, and very few men thereafter, could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located - so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation - there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“All roads lead to Trantor, and that is where all stars end.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Galaxy! When can a man know he is not a puppet? How can a man know he is not a puppet?”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“In all the known history of Mankind, advances have been made primarily in physical technology; in the capacity of handling the inanimate world about Man. Control of self and society has been left to to chance or to the vague gropings of intuitive ethical systems based on inspiration and emotion. As a result no culture of greater stability than about fifty-five percent has ever existed, and these only as the result of great human misery.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Well, he used to say that only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Speech, originally, was the device whereby Man learned, imperfectly, to transmit the thoughts and emotions of his mind. By setting up arbitrary sounds and combinations of sounds to represent certain mental nuances, he developed a method of communication - but one which in its clumsiness and thick-thumbed inadequacy degenerated all the delicacy of the mind into gross and guttural signaling”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“...and he wreaked havoc among the buttered toast as he said it.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Feet, for tens of thousands of years, had clogged and shuffled in the mud – and held down the minds which, for an equal time, had been fit for the companionship of the stars.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Stoop, then, or you will be beaten to your knees. Stoop voluntarily, and you may save a remnant. You have depended on metal and power and they have sustained you as far as they could. You have ignored mind and morale and they have failed you.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Psychohistory was the quintessence of sociology; it was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations. The individual human being is unpredictable, but the reactions of human mobs, Seldon found, could be treated statistically.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation — there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Down—down—the results can be followed; and all the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy, until Hari Seldon, and very few men thereafter, could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located—so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation—there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Galaxy! When can a man know he is not a puppet? How can a man know he is not a puppet? Arcadia”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Why do you think it is stupid to go to windows instead of to doors?”

“Because you advertise what you’re trying to hide, silly. If I have a secret, I don’t put tape over my mouth and let everyone know I have a secret. I talk just as much as usual, only about something else. Didn’t you ever read any of the sayings of Salvor Hardin? He was our first Mayor, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, he used to say that only a lie that wasn’t ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true. Well, when you come in through a window, it’s a lie that’s ashamed of itself and it doesn’t sound true.”

“Then what would you have done?”

“If I had wanted to see my father on top secret business, I would have made his acquaintance openly and seen him about all sorts of strictly legitimate things. And then when everyone knew all about you and connected you with my father as a matter of course, you could be as top secret as you wanted and nobody would ever think of questioning it.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Good,” said the First Speaker. “And tell me, what do you think of all this. A finished work of art, is it not?”

“Definitely!”

“Wrong! It is not.” This, with sharpness. “It is the first lesson you must unlearn. The Seldon Plan is neither complete nor correct. Instead, it is merely the best that could be done at the time. Over a dozen generations of men have pored over these equations, worked at them, taken them apart to the last decimal place, and put them together again. They’ve done more than that. They’ve watched nearly four hundred years pass and against the predictions and equations, they’ve checked reality, and they have learned.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“Agitation from the other side of the desk.

“No—now you must take this phlegmatically. You had hoped you would qualify. You had feared you would not. Actually, both hope and fear are weaknesses. You knew you would qualify and you hesitate to admit the fact because such knowledge might stamp you as cocksure and therefore unfit. Nonsense! The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise. It is part of your qualification that you knew you would qualify.”

Relaxation on the other side of the desk.

“Exactly. Now you feel better and your guard is down. You are fitter to concentrate and fitter to understand. Remember, to be truly effective, it is not necessary to hold the mind under a tight, controlling barrier which to the intelligent probe is as informative as a naked mentality. Rather, one should cultivate an innocence, an awareness of self, and an unselfconsciousness of self which leaves one nothing to hide. My mind is open to you. Let this be so for both of us.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“It’s always easy to explain the unknown by postulating a superhuman and arbitrary will.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“He never created a finish product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“the intruder was an obviously mature thirty, at least—quite elderly, in fact.)”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“only a lie that wasn’t ashamed of itself could possibly succeed.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

“El hombre más redomadamente estúpido es aquel que ignora su sabiduría.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Second Foundation

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Popular quotes

“When I was fourteen, I thought a lot about killing myself—it’s a hobby today, but at age fourteen it was a vocation. On a September morning, just after school started, I’d gotten Diane’s .44 Magnum and held it, babylike, in my lap for hours. What an indulgence it would be, to just blow off my head, all my mean spirits disappearing with a gun blast, like blowing a seedy dandelion apart. But I thought about Diane, and her coming home to my small torso and a red wall, and I couldn’t do it. It’s probably why I was so hateful to her, she kept me from what I wanted the most.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Dark Places

“Where, indeed? Captain Vincent Reed had been born in the city of Richmond, Virginia, of northern parents who were stationed there by the telegraph company. He had attended West Point and he thought he knew something about warfare, having served under General Pope in his long and futile struggle against General Stonewall Jackson. Those men were fighters who would face the enemy till the last bullet was fired, but neither would participate in such a slaughter.

Reed had had his troops in position. He was quite prepared to rush in for the kill, and he had positioned himself so that he would be in the vanguard when his men made their charge against the guns of the young braves threatening the left flank. But when he saw that the enemy had no weapons, that even their bows and arrows were not at hand, and that he was supposed to chop down little girls and old women, he rebelled on the spot, taking counsel with no one but his own conscience.”
― James A. Michener, quote from Centennial

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“Il sole tramontava già fra le profondità verdi delle colline a ovest della vallata, e le sue ombre rosse e rosate sfioravano gli angoli più remoti della campagna, quando Flick Ohmsford cominciò la sua discesa. Il sentiero calava giù irregolarmente per il pendio settentrionale, serpeggiando attraverso i massi imponenti che costeggiavano il terreno, sparendo nelle folte foreste delle pianure per ricomparire a tratti nelle piccole radure e negli spazi liberi della zona dei boschi.”
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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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