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They work off all their resentments, enjoy all the smug self-satisfaction a young revolutionary would have, and by the time they take their place in the Imperial hierarchy, they are ready to settle down into conformity and obedience.”
I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking.
“That’s just a reference to a game played by children on my home planet of Hopara. The game is supposed to tell the future and if you’re a smart kid, you can make a good thing out of it. Tell a mother that her child will grow up beautiful and marry a rich man and it’s good for a piece of cake or a half-credit piece on the spot. She isn’t going to wait and see if it comes true; you are rewarded just for saying it.”
“On the other hand,” said Randa, “my uncle used to say, ‘All knowledge is one,’ and he may be right. You may learn something from meteorology that will help you with your psychohistory.
that the Universe as a whole, in its full complexity, cannot be represented by any simulation smaller than itself.
“In other words, you can’t get any picture of the Universe as a whole except by studying the entire Universe.
The downtrodden are more religious than the satisfied.”
Why, he wondered, did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions—not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.
“Emotions, my dear Seldon, are a powerful engine of human action, far more powerful than human beings themselves realize, and you cannot know how much can be done with the merest touch and how reluctant I am to do it.”
