Foundation and Empire (The Foundation Trilogy #2)

by Isaac Asimov

and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe.’

To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was ‘system’, an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was ‘industry’, indecision when right was ‘caution’, and blind stubborness when wrong, ‘determination’.

“Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.”

It was strange that a world which had been untouched through the vast conquering sweeps and retreats of a millennium, and equally untouched by the civil wars and palace revolutions of another millennium – should lie dead at last. It was strange that the Glory of the Galaxy should be a rotting corpse. And pathetic! For centuries would yet pass before the mighty works of fifty generations of humans would decay past use. Only the declining powers of men, themselves, rendered them useless now.