"Now the plan was threatend by something more serious than the Mule had ever been. It was to be diverted from a renewal of Empire to something utterly different from anything in history - Galaxia. And he himself had agreed to that. But why? Was there a flaw in the plan? a basic flaw? For one flashing moment, it seemed to Trevize that this flaw did indeed exist and that he knew what it was, that he had known what it was when he made his decision - but the knowledge...if that were what it was...vanished as fast as it came, and left him with nothing."

"Old memories - really old - are almost all in the mountain roots where it takes time to dig them out."

"If you were to insist I was a robot, you might not consider me capable of love in some mystic human sense, but you would not be able to distinguish my reactions from that which you would call love — so what difference would it make?"

"We abandoned the appearance of power to preserve the essence of it."

"It is better to go to defeat with free will than to live in a meaningless security as a cog in a machine."

"It was easy to cover up ignorance by the mystical word “intuition.”"

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

"“Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate — like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history — until it degenerates into fables.” Pelorat said, “We historians are familiar with the process, Dom. There is a certain preference for the fable. The falsely dramatic drives out the truly dull.”"

"It's one thing to have guts; it's another to be crazy."

"“Is not all this an extraordinary concatenation of coincidence?” Pelorat said, “If you list it like that—” “List it any way you please,” said Trevize. “I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.”"

"Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere."

"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... You show me someone who can’t understand people and I’ll show you someone who has built up a false image of himself.”"

"If there is a misuse of power, it is on her part. 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."

"It seems to me, Golan, that the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy."

"At odd and unpredictable times, we cling in fright to the past."

"To us, all life is a series of accidents to be met with improvisations. To them, all life is purposive and should be met with precalculation."

"The spell of power never quite releases its hold."

"No matter how the conomy and sociology of the neighbouring sectors of the Galaxy changes, there was always an elite; and it is always the characteristic of an elite that it possesses leisure as the great reward of its elite-hood."

"Remarkable what a fragile flower romance is. A gun with a nervous operator behind it can spoil the whole thing."

"The house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter's mad little life was in danger."

"One should cultivate an innocence, an awareness of self, and an unselfconsciousness of self which leaves one nothing to hide."

"The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise."

"Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located — so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation — there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man."

"Your emotions are, of course, only the children of your background and are not to be condemned - merely changed."

"He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds."

"Secrecy as deep as this is past possibility without nonexistence as well."

"It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim."

"“When the twenty-seven independent Trading Worlds, united only by their distrust of mother planet of the Foundation, concert an assembly among themselves, and each is big with a pride grown of its smallness, hardened by its own insularity and embittered by eternal danger — there are preliminary negotiations to be overcome of a pettiness sufficiently staggering to heart-sicken the most persevering.”"

"“Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me,” he said, “then I would say this lady can not exist — for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes.”"

"It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned."

"To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was “system,” an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was “industry,” indecision when right was “caution,” and blind stubbornness when wrong, “determination.”"

"Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs."

"You are a valuable subject, Brodrig. You always suspect far more than is necessary, and I have but to take half your suggested precautions to be utterly safe."

"He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others."

"It's a poor atom blaster that won't point both ways."

"An atom blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways."

"Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user."

"Korell is that frequent phenomenon in history: the republic whose ruler has every attribute of the absolute monarch but the name. It therefore enjoyed the usual despotism unrestrained even by those two moderating influences in the legitimate monarchies: regal “honor” and court etiquette."

"To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well."

"He is energetic only in evading responsibility."

"The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose."

"There's something about a pious man such as he. He will cheerfully cut your throat if it suits him, but he will hesitate to endanger the welfare of your immaterial and problematical soul."

"“Ponyets! They sent you?” “Pure chance,” said Ponyets, bitterly, “or the work of my own personal malevolent demon.”"

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

"A fire eater must eat fire even if he has to kindle it himself."

"For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science, that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly."

"He believes in that mummery a good deal less than I do, and I don't believe in it at all."

"Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning."

"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."