Quotes from David Brin

Yet egotism can also be useful to ambitious creatures, driving their single-minded pursuit of success. Madness seems essential in order to be "great.

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally.

I've put some thought to it. How can we set up a system which encourages individuals to strive and excel, and yet which shows some compassion to the weak, and weeds out madmen and tyrants?

the towering standing wave that composes the symphony of thought.

Where is it written that one should only care about big things?

Your neighbors are not all sheep. Your political opponents are not all evil or fools. Try talking to those you despise. They are your fellow citizens. And together, we are not lesser than any greatest generation..

I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings.

As simple an act as reading or writing a sentence must be surrounded by perceptory nap and weave . . . an itch, a stray memory from childhood, the distant sound of a barking dog, or something left over from the lunch that is found caught between the teeth.

Magic and art arise from an egomaniac's insistence that the artist is right, and the universe wrong.

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

So if it appears that my argument supports the necessity of lawyers, please accept that I say it with reluctant awareness that things would be worse without them.

new astronomy also had to adjust to the idea that what their senses told them everyday was untrue – that the world did not revolve around them alone.

All I ask is Ã¢â'¬Â¦ ponder with open minds. We've made so many mistakes, humanity, during just one lifetime. Many of them perpetrated not by evildoers, drenched in malice, but by men and women filled with fine motives! Like you.

When most of the people who know the most about a subject are seen to agree, despite their competitiveness, then it's generally wise for policy to begin by paying heed to expert advice.

All sooners know life is something you just borrow for a while. Each person must choose how to spend it.

Between 1000 C.E. and 1945, the longest period of uninterrupted peace in Europe was a fifty-one-year stretch between the Battle of Waterloo and the Austro-Prussian War. That tranquil period came amid the industrial revolution, as millions moved from farm to city. Was it harder, for a while, to find soldiers? Or did people feel too busy to fight?

But Orpheus failed because, like all pakeha, he just couldn't keep his mind on one thing at a time.

it's obvious to anyone that 5,000 golf buddies in an incestuous CEO caste can much more plausibly connive in secret with parasitic Wall Streeters, casino moguls, Mafiosi, "ex"-KGB agents and inheritance brats. The very folks who want populist rallies pouring hate at both people of color and smart folks.

The scientists pushing Global Warming are all in it for climate study grants. Seriously, you never realized you can judo-kill that with just four words? Show… us… the… 'grants.

a species used to strict patterns of inherited hierarchy.

Back up this 'grant-hugging' calumny on the Fox web site by next week, or admit now that you're a coward-liar.

Strong privacy advocates—especially those promoting encryption and anonymity—may deny that this phenomenon is a direct physical corollary of their message, so I will let the reader decide whether a philosophy that relies on cybernetic gates, walls, and coded locks is any different in its underlying basis—fear.

Russian President and "ex" KGB agent Vladimir Putin calls the fall of the USSR "history's greatest tragedy," and he pours special blame-hatred for that calamity at George Soros.

In other words, bright people with too much time on their hands, overly influenced by notions they found in old Earth books.