“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God?” EMERSON
The Law of Universal Gravitation states that there exists a cohesive force among all bodies of the universe, such that the amount of this force between any two given bodies is proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them.”
“Because great laws are not divined by flashes of inspiration, whatever you may think. It usually takes the combined work of a world full of scientists over a period of centuries.
A baby is born with three instinctive fears: of loud noises, of falling, and of the absence of light.
It might be, you know, that in the presence of total Darkness, the mind finds it absolutely necessary to create light. This illusion of light might be all the Stars there really are.”
Through it shone the Stars! Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster. Thirty thousand mighty suns shone down in a soul-searing splendor that was more frighteningly cold in its awful indifference than the bitter wind that shivered across the cold, horribly bleak world.
They strove to find in the control of inanimate matter what they could not find in themselves. In their unconscious yearning for completeness, they built machines and scoured space, seeking, seeking…
And that’s what life on Earth really is, the kind of organic organization we have, compared to that on Saybrook’s Planet. One big cancer. Every species, every individual doing its best to thrive at the expense of every other species and individual.”
Weiss closed his eyes and told himself it might not be such a bad thing. There would be no more disease, since no bacterium would multiply at the expense of its host, but instead would be satisfied with its fair share of what was available. There would be no more overpopulation; the hordes of mankind would decline to adjust themselves to the food supply. There would be no more wars, no crime, no greed. But there would be no more individuality, either. Humanity would find security by becoming a cog in a biological machine. A man would be brother to a germ, or to a liver cell.
“No people are truly immortal. If there were no other way to die, there would always be accident, and if that fails, there is boredom. Few of us live more than several centuries of your time. Still, it is unpleasant to think that death may come involuntarily. It is something which, to us, is extremely horrible. It bothers me even as I think of it now, this thought that against my will and despite all care, death may come.”
“What would you do, Dr. Grant, if you felt you had to do something that you couldn’t do.” Grant shrugged. “I don’t know.” “Some people kill themselves.”
Groups, like individuals, will rise to strange heights in answer to a challenge, and vegetate in the absence of a challenge. Where Dr. Ralson left the paths of sanity, however, was in insisting that such a view amounted to confusing cause and effect. He declared that it was not times of war and danger that stimulated ‘cultural spurts,’ but rather vice versa. He claimed that each time a group of men showed too much vitality and ability, a war became necessary to destroy the possibility of their further development.”
Look at the planet, Earth. What kind of a ridiculous animal are we to be lords of the world after the dinosaurs had failed? Sure, we’re intelligent, but what’s intelligence? We think it is important because we have it. If the Tyrannosaurus could have picked out the one quality that he thought would ensure species domination, it would be size and strength. And he would make a better case for it. He lasted longer than we’re likely to.
“My loyalty’s where it belongs. With honesty and decency, regardless of the shape of the being it appears in.”
too. A man had a right to be afraid. No one likes to die.
He stopped, and stretched out a hand as though to caress the map on the wall. “Mr. Stuart,” Mullen asked quietly, “haven’t you ever been homesick?”
“In a good cause, there are no failures.”
“It’s this idea I have that all mankind should be a single unit. There shouldn’t be wars or space-fleets armed only for destruction. The Galaxy stands ready to be opened to the united efforts of the human race. Instead, we have been factioned for nearly two thousand years, and we throw away all the Galaxy.”
In a good cause, there are no failures; there are only delayed successes.” “Even if you are executed for this day’s work?” “Even if I am executed. There will be someone else to carry on, and his success will be my success.”
Human beings are human beings and that’s the nasty part of it. Maybe we’ve got to be whipped into line.
Essentially, it’s just a notion that emotion is the common bond of life, rather than reason or intellect. It’s practically a truism, I suppose. You can’t tell what a baby thinks or even if it thinks, but it’s perfectly obvious that it can be angry, frightened or contented even when a week old.
Words were invented to conceal emotions. It was the dreadfulness of raw emotion that had made language a basic necessity.
“What’s blasphemous about it? Why shouldn’t a flea consider the dog as something to be worshipped? It’s the source of warmth, food, and all that’s good for a flea.”
But words were meant to hide emotion and when they failed, humanity loyally maintained the pretense.
We were especially interested in the automobile angle. Suppose you had a little thinking machine on the dashboard, hooked to the engine and battery and equipped with photo-electric eyes. It could choose an ideal course, avoid cars, stop at red lights, pick the optimum speed for the terrain. Everybody could sit in the back seat and automobile accidents would vanish.
Dr. Sloane rose to his feet. “Mrs. Hanshaw, he’s as normal as need be right now. Right now, he’s tasting the joys of the forbidden. If you cooperate with him, show that you don’t disapprove, it will lose some of its attraction right there. Then, as he grows older, he will become more aware of the expectations and demands of society. He will learn to conform. After all, there is a little of the rebel in all of us, but it generally dies down as we grow old and tired. Unless, that is, it is unreasonably suppressed and allowed to build up pressure. Don’t do that. Richard will be all right.”
The welfare of thirty thousand on one side; the just demands of one family on the other. Could one say that thirty thousand who would support such injustice deserved to die? Injustice by what standards? Earth’s? Elsevere’s? And who was Lamorak that he should judge? And Ragusnik? He was willing to let thirty thousand die, including men and women who merely accepted a situation they had been taught to accept and could not change if they wished to. And children who had nothing at all to do with it. Thirty thousand on one side; a single family on the other.
One of Parkinson’s laws is: “Work expands to fill the time available.” It did in my case. In no time at all, I found I was typing as assiduously full-time as I had previously been typing half-time and I quickly discovered the Asimov corollary to Parkinson’s law: “In ten hours a day you have time to fall twice as far behind your commitments as in five hours a day.”
I am myself; well pleased to be myself; and would not be anything else.”
