More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
After all, the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it.
“Because of the dead hand of the mathematics of human behavior that can neither be stopped, swerved, nor delayed.”
“I thank you,” said the general, coldly, “but I would remind you that there is a difference between boldness and blindness. There is a place for a decisive gamble when you know your enemy and can calculate the risks at least roughly; but to move at all against an unknown enemy is boldness in itself. 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.”
“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.
society is much more easily soothed than one’s own conscience—he
Captain Han Pritcher of Information found a Personal Capsule waiting for him when he returned to barracks. It contained orders, terse and redly underlined with a stamped “URGENT” across it, and the whole initialed with a precise, capital “I.” Captain Han Pritcher was ordered to the “rebel world called Haven” in the strongest terms. Captain Han Pritcher, alone in his light one-man speedster, set his course quietly and calmly for Kalgan. He slept that night the sleep of a successfully stubborn man.
is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.
‘Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.’
“Four months? Do you understand what that means? For a crisis to come to a head in four months would mean that it has been preparing for years.” “And why not? Is there a law of Nature that requires the process to mature in the full light of day?”
The Mule can be licked.” “How?” “By the only way anyone can be licked—by attacking in strength at weakness.
