Quotes from David Brin

Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you. If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.

In the end, the work of diplomats continues even while others fight. So, it's not necessarily true that everyone needs to march.

It's said that 'power corrupts,' but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not.

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up..

Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.

The village is coming back, like it or not.

Freedom was wonderful beyond relief. But with it came that bitch, Duty.

Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as 'enlightenment.

We aren't a curse upon the world. We are her new eyes. Her brain, testes, ovaries . . . her ambition and her heart. Her voice. So sing. (556)

True brilliance has a well-known positive correlation with decency, much of the time--a fact the rest of us rely on, more than we ever know. The real world doesn't roil with as many crazed artists, psychotic generals, dyspeptic writers, maniacal statesmen, insatiable tycoons, or mad scientists as you see in dramas.

The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage.

Information is not like money or any other commodity. The cracks that it can slip through are almost infinitely small, and it can be duplicated at almost zero cost. Soon information will be like air, like the weather, and as easy to control.

As sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. But science fiction has not been forgiven for its crap. The reason is that science fiction inherently distrusts the 'eternal verities' on which literature graduates base their doctoral dissertations. Literature departments were uncomfortable with that. But things change.

The species greatest harvest ? words.

The measure of (mental) health is flexibility (not comparison to some 'norm'), the freedom to learn from experience Ã¢â'¬Â¦ to be influenced by reasonable arguments Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and the appeal to the emotions Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and especially the freedom to cease when sated. The essence of illness is the freezing of behavior into unalterable and insatiable patterns. Lawrence Kubie

In good times, pessimism is a luxury; but in bad times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling and fatal prophecy.

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.

Liberal interventions that enable all children to shoot for their potential aren't just moral, they are pragmatic - any society that wastes talent to poverty or oppression isn't just evil: it is stupid.

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens.

Historically, central planners have generally done a poor job of managing economic resources - this we've known since the time of the Pharaohs.

The Enlightenment diamond-shaped society, with a huge, prosperous, socially-mobile, empowered middle class, is by far the most productive and creative system the world has ever seen.

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?