Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)

by Isaac Asimov

“Of course it’s a common sight,” said Trevize. “That’s why no one sees it. Why see it if you can always see it?

the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy.”

there is a tendency to cling to the past—except, of course, as far as weapons of war are concerned.

you are never too old to learn more than you already know and to become able to do more than you already can.

People have a tendency to take it for granted that they are better than their neighbors; that their culture is older and superior to that of other worlds; that what is good in other worlds has been borrowed from them, while what is bad is distorted or perverted in the borrowing or invented elsewhere. And the tendency is to equate superiority in quality with superiority in duration.