Prelude to Foundation (Foundation, #6)

by Isaac Asimov

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.

although the signs were plentiful (and clearly visible in hindsight) that there were gathering problems, those who lived on Trantor undoubtedly found it still the Eternal World of legend and did not expect it would ever…

“Walking is still the best form of short-distance transportation. It’s the most convenient, the cheapest, and the most healthful. Countless years of technological advance have not changed that.

Historians pick and choose and every one of them picks and chooses the same thing.”

According to the records, it had a fairly normal weather pattern when it was first settled. Then, as the population grew and urbanization spread, more energy was used and more heat was discharged into the atmosphere. The ice cover contracted, the cloud layer thickened, and the weather got lousier. That encouraged the movement underground and set off a vicious cycle. The worse the weather got, the more eagerly the land was dug into and the domes built and the weather got still worse.

the Universe as a whole, in its full complexity, cannot be represented by any simulation smaller than itself.

public sex was frowned upon only when traffic was blocked.

“Because species can’t interbreed. That’s what makes them species.”

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?

“Saying something is ‘too bad’ is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It’s a lot worse than ‘too bad.’ It’s against everything decent and natural. We’re all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We’re all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren’t we?”

There is a longing for a supposedly simple and virtuous past that is almost universal among the people of a complex and vicious society.

At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups.

Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force.”

My ambition is moderate indeed; one world, not millions;

If all human beings understood history, they might cease making the same stupid mistakes over and over.”