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A paradox arises only out of an ambiguity that deceives either unwittingly or by design.
People tended to avoid the humiliation of failure by joining the obviously winning side even against their own opinions.
The pleasantness of their company outweighed the regret of their passing.
Being feared is nothing. Being despised, even, can be lived with. But being laughed at—that’s fatal.
Dahl is the poorest sector on Trantor and there is a positive correlation between poverty, misery, and crime.
Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.”
“You don’t need schooling to be a philosopher. Just an active mind and experience with life.
Happy the world without a history, I always say.
“It’s all but impossible to change people’s minds and hearts, Raych. It’s enough to try and perhaps eliminate the worst of the injustices.”
“Andorin, do you believe in gods?” Andorin stared. “In what?” “In gods.” “I never heard the word. What is it?” Namarti said, “It’s not Galactic Standard. Supernatural influences. How’s that?” “Oh, supernatural influences. Why didn’t you say so? No, I don’t believe in that sort of thing. By definition, something is supernatural if it exists outside the laws of nature and nothing exists outside the laws of nature.
“In twenty thousand years, democracy has never been used for very long without falling apart.”
Linn was well known as “Tennar’s lackey” and knew that was how he was known. It did not bother him. As lackey, he was safe—and he had seen the downfall of those who had been too proud to be lackeys.
“However, though the request is reasonable and the citizenry is better off paying taxes as their price for maintaining a stable and efficient government, they are nevertheless reluctant to do so. In order to overcome this reluctance, governments must make it appear that they are not taking too many credits, and that they are considering each citizen’s rights and benefits. In other words, they must lower the percentage taken out of low incomes; they must allow deductions of various kinds to be made before the tax is assessed, and so on. “As time goes on, the tax situation inevitably grows more
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“Are you telling me that our tax system is overcomplicated?” Seldon said, “If it were not, it would be the only one in history that wasn’t, as far as I know.
There was so much more in the past, so much less in the future, that the mind turned away from the looming shadow ahead to contemplate the safety of what had gone before.
“You know the old proverb: The shoemaker’s child has no shoes.
“When we come to such a crossroads in our ‘civilized’ society,” the judge intoned from her bench, “that a man of Professor Hari Seldon’s standing is made to bear the humiliation, abuse, and lies of his peers simply because of who he is and what he stands for, it is truly a dark day for the Empire.
