Brain Wave

by Poul Anderson

he claimed to be one of the last true conservatives—only, to conserve, you had to prune and graft and adjust.

Don’t ever trade your liberty for another man’s offer to do your thinking and make your mistakes for you.

ninety-nine per cent of the human race, no matter how smart they are, will do the convenient thing instead of the wise thing, and kid themselves into thinking they can somehow escape the consequences.

Any society was necessarily founded on certain more or less arbitrary rules and restrictions. Too many people had suddenly realized that the laws were arbitrary, without intrinsic significance, and had proceeded to violate whichever ones they didn’t like.

“The trouble with all of you is that one way or another, you’re all afraid to face life. Instead of trying to shape the future, you’ve been wanting a past which is already a million years behind us. You’ve lost your old illusions and you haven’t got what it takes to make new and better ones for yourselves.”

Sheer intelligence counts for less than personality, strength of character, or the simple ability to make decisions and stick by them.”