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You might as well ask why the same man sprints safely across an obstacle course in the day, and falls over the furniture in his room at night.”
“There’s nothing to do. It’s all already done. It’s proceeding now. Because you don’t hear the wheels turning and the gongs beating doesn’t mean it’s any the less certain.”
“The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.
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 stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”
this history you mention became inevitable only after we had fought desperately for over a year. The inevitable victory we won cost us half a thousand ships and half a million men. Excellence, Seldon’s plan helps those who help themselves.”
“Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me,” he said, “then I would say this lady cannot exist—for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.”
‘Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.’
Inevitably, he said, “What is the meaning of this?” It is the precise question and the precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect.
Bayta joined the three girls who were taking turns at the eternally applied and eternally inefficacious remedies of shoulder-patting, hair-smoothing, and incoherent murmuring.
It was strange that a world which had been the center of a Galaxy for two thousand years—that had ruled limitless space and been home to legislators and rulers whose whims spanned the parsecs—could die in a month.
“She liked me without my having to juggle her emotions. She was neither repelled by me nor amused by me. She liked me!
