Activists From The United States

"He liked everything about the university except the students."

"“It’s a nitwit idea.” “Yes, sir.” “Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you’ve got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.”"

"“Perhaps I was expecting too much.” “Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.”"

"Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving."

"Rod privately suspected the Scots studied their speech off duty so they’d be unintelligible to the rest of humanity."

"And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges."

"What’s the justification for ancestor worship? You know what happens to a man without modern geriatrics: as he ages his brain cells start to die. Yet people tend to respect him, to listen to him."

"“How did you come to represent the belt?” “Aptitude tests said I had a high IQ and liked ordering people around. From there I worked my way up.” “We go by the vote.” “Popularity contests.” “It works. But it does have drawbacks. What government doesn’t?”"

"“For letting us examine their silly records they want to charge us a flat million marks!” “Pay it.” “It’s robbery.” “A Belter says that? Why don’t you have records on Mars?” “We were never interested. What for?” “What about abstract knowledge?” “Another word for useless.” “Then what makes you want useless knowledge enough to pay a million marks for it?” Slowly Nick matched his grin. “It’s still robbery. How in Finagle’s name did Earth know they’d need to know about Mars?” “That’s the secret of abstract knowledge. You get in the habit of finding out everything you can about everything. Most of it gets used sooner or later.”"

"The Perversity of the Universe Tends Toward a Maximum."

"I’m being chauvinistic, he told himself. I can’t judge an alien’s sanity by Belt standards, can I? His lip curled. Sure I can. That ship is badly designed."

"Brennan was an optimist. He didn’t expect to be caught."

"The stars are far from eternal, but for man they might as well be."

"Sometimes there’s no point in giving up."

"There is never no hope left. Remember."

"Forget the infinities: Concentrate on detail."

"We learn only to ask more questions."

"Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with."

"The majority is always sane."

"Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory."

"One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better."

"The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile."

"To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal."

"The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools."

"Fear is the brother of hate."

"Louis knew a few xenophobes, and regarded them as dolts."

"“I don’t doubt you’re serious,” he said wonderingly. “What I doubt is your sanity.”"

"I have a kind of psychic invisibility. As long as I can stay scared, I can keep people from seeing me. That's what we have to count on."

"He kept the gun in his hand. It felt good. He was sick of having to be afraid. It was a situation to drive a man right out of his skull. If he stopped being afraid, even for an instant, he could be killed! But now, at least for the moment, he could stop listening for footsteps, stop trying to look in all directions at once. A sonic stunner was a surer bet than a hypothetical, undependable psi power. It was real, cold and hard in his hand."

"Yes, the bleeding heart was something else again. A gruesome symbol on a vivarium floor. Fingers that broke without their owner noticing. An ink drawing appearing from nowhere on a dossier cover, like a signature. A signature."

"Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world.""

"Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you’re expressing yourself badly, and don’t try to shift the blame."

"I'm no historian," said Harry. "But morals are morals. What's unethical here and now is unethical anywhere, anytime. "Kane, you're wrong. It is ethical to execute a man for theft?" "Of course." "Did you know that there was once a vastly detailed science of rehabilitation for criminals? It was a branch of psychology, naturally, but it was by far the largest such branch. By the middle of century twenty-one, nearly two-thirds of all criminals could eventually be released as cured." "That's silly. Why go to all that trouble when the organ banks must have been crying for — Oh. I see. No organ banks."

"Our society depends entirely on its technology. Change the technology, and you change the society. Most especially you change the ethics."

"Jesus Pietro was worried. The Sons of Earth, if they got this far, would go straight to the vivarium to free their compatriots. But if Matthew Keller was his own agent... If the ghost of Alpha Plateau was not a rebel, but a thing with its own unpredictable purpose... Jesus Pietro worried."

"He was shaking. A mass verbal attack can do that to a man, can smash his self-respect and set up doubts which remain for hours or days or forever. There are well-developed verbal techniques for many to use against one. You never let the victim speak without interruption; never let him finish a sentence. You interrupt each other so that he can’t quite catch the drift of your arguments, and then he can’t find the flaws. He forgets his rebuttal points because he’s not allowed to put them into words. His only defense is to walk out. If, instead, you throw him out…"

"Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. It would require brand new techniques. Grimly he set out to evolve them."

"Geoffrey Eustace Parlette had evidently imitated ancient bad taste in hopes of getting something new and different."

"There were organ banks all over the world, inadequately supplied by people kind enough to will their bodies to medical science. How useful is the body of a man who dies of old age? How fast can you reach a car accident? And in 2043, Arkansas, which had never rescinded the death penalty, made the organ banks the official state method of execution. The idea had spread like wildfire...like a moral plague, as one critic of the time had put it."

"Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning. But the citizen cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied. The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals.… A criminal's pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good. Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material. Cite Earth's capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license. The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws."

"With all its horrors and all its failures, life was bearable where there were hot showers."

"The organ banks would be supplied for years. Not only would the crew have a full supply, which they always did anyway, but there would be spare parts for exceptional servants of the regime; i.e., for civil servants such as Jesus Pietro and his men. Even the colonists would benefit. It was not at all unusual for the Hospital to treat a sick but deserving colonist if the medical supplies were sufficient. The Hospital treated everyone they could. It reminded the colonists that the crew ruled in their name and had their interests at heart. And the Sons of Earth was dead. All but one man, and from his picture he wasn't old enough to be dangerous. Nonetheless Jesus Pietro had his picture tacked to the Hospital bulletin boards and sent a copy to the newscast station with the warning that he was wanted for questioning. It was not until dawn, when he was settling down to sleep, that he remembered who belonged to that face. Matthew Keller's nephew..."

"You look like a girl with a secret," Matt said. "I think it must be the smile." She moved closer to him, which was very close, and lowered her voice. "Can you keep a secret?" Matt smiled with one side of his mouth to show that he knew what was coming. She said it anyway. "So can I."

"From the beginning there had been a revolutionary group. Its name had changed several times, and Matt had no idea what it was now. He had never known a revolutionary. He had no particular desire to be one. They accomplished nothing, except to fill the Hospital's organ banks. How could they, when the crew controlled every weapon and every watt of power on Mount Lookitthat? If this was a nest of rebels, then they had worked out a good cover. Many of the merrymakers had no hearing aids, and these seemed to be the ones who didn't know anyone here. Like Matt himself. In the midst of a reasonably genuine open-house brawl, certain people listened to voices only they could hear."

"The medical revolution that began with the beginning of the twentieth century had warped all human society for five hundred years. America had adjusted to Eli Whitney's cotton gin in less than half that time. As with the gin, the effects would never quite die out. But already society was swinging back to what had once been normal. Slowly; but there was motion. In Brazil a small but growing alliance agitated for the removal of the death penalty for habitual traffic offenders. They would be opposed, but they would win."

"Matthew Leigh Keller sat beneath a watershed tree and brooded. Other children played all around him, but they ignored Matt. So did two teachers on monitor duty. People usually ignored Matt when he wanted to be alone. Uncle Matt was gone. Gone to a fate so horrible that the adults wouldn't even talk about it."

"A ramrobot had been the first to see Mount Lookitthat. Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching that of light."

"Putting a monkey wrench in machinery is often the only way to force somebody to repair, replace, or redesign the machinery. Especially legal or social machinery."

"A thrint was master over every intelligent beast. This was the Powergiver’s primal decree, made before he made the stars. So said all of the twelve thrintun religions, though they fought insanely over other matters."

"It does not destroy matter, which is reassuring. Rewriting one law of physics is worse than trying to eat one peanut."