Category: Thought

Human judges can show mercy. But against the laws of nature, there is no appeal.

Arthur C. Clarke, “Maelstrom II” (1965).

Eminent men were called on to take command and arrange suitable measures. They immediately acted as eminent men so often do; they took action to retain their eminence. Their first instinct was caution. When a man is important enough, it does not matter if he never does anything. It is only required of him that he do nothing wrong. Eminent figures all over the world prepared to do nothing wrong. They were not so concerned to do anything right.

Murray Leinster, The Wailing Asteroid (1960), Chapter 3 (pp. 32–33).

Reality is what trips you up when you walk around with your eyes closed.

F. Paul Wilson, Healer (1976).

A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.

Samuel R. Delany, The Jewels of Aptor (1962), tenth chapter.

War, hate, jealousy, racism — what are they but manifestations of fear?

F. Paul Wilson, Reprisal (1991).

It takes all nations to keep the peace, but it only takes one to start a war.

Robert A. Heinlein, “Free Men” (1966).

I think power is a sickness and governing is a folly for madmen.

Valentine the juggler, denying his identity as Lord Valentine, in Robert Silverberg, Lord Valentine’s Castle (1980), Book 1, Chapter 15 (p. 113).

I’ve never noticed that being nonsensical keeps things from happening. Don’t you ever read about politics?

Murray Leinster, Time Tunnel (1964), second chapter, p. 22.

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.

Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head (1961).

I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

John Updike, testifying before the Subcommittee on Select Education of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, Boston, Massachusetts (January 30, 1978).