Foundation's Edge (Foundation, #4)

by Isaac Asimov

“Perhaps,” said Gendibal stolidly, quite aware that Delarmi was feeding him rope with a noose at the end of it.

He could not tell whether he feared for himself or for the entire Second Foundation. The taste of doom was sour in his mouth.

My crime is that I have never labored to make myself popular—I admit that much—and I have paid too little attention to fools who are old enough to be senile but young enough to have power.”

There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.

There is no more desire to live past one’s time than to die before it.”