Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)

by Isaac Asimov

Pelorat sighed. “I will never understand people.” “There’s nothing to it. All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. We’re in no way different ourselves. How would Seldon have worked out his Plan—and I don’t care how subtle his mathematics was—if he didn’t understand people; and how could he have done that if people weren’t easy to understand? You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself—no offense intended.”

“It is no shame to aspire to something even if it is beyond your reach. You are now too old to be made a scholar after my fashion, but you are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can.

Societies create their own history and tend to wipe out lowly beginnings, either by forgetting them or inventing totally fictitious heroic rescues.