"She had an exasperating feeling that there was a principle somewhere that she had missed; a principle which once grasped would make the whole thing as clear as daylight. But if there was it continued to elude her."

"There are, of course, risks. In fact, there are three distinct kinds of risk: the known ones which we can and shall prepare against; the known ones which we must trust to luck to avoid; and the entirely unknown."

"Poor baby, what a world to come into."

"We have had a glorious past—but a glorious past is bitterness for a child with a hopeless future."

"Wondering why one's friends chose to marry the people they did is unprofitable, but recurrent."

"'There's a whole lot of people don't seem to understand that you have to talk to a man in his own language before he'll take you seriously.'"

""I'm afraid I'm not very good at understanding things like that." "You say that, but what you really mean is: 'I don't want to understand things like that.' " "It's true," she admitted."

"Life in all its forms is strife; the better matched the opponents, the harder the struggle. The most powerful of all weapons is intelligence; any intelligent form dominates by, and therefore survives by, its intelligence."

"The world has so multiplied the causes of fear that no one is left entirely unafraid."

"Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool's vote is equal to a sensible man's?"

""We ourselves have a tradition of taking beatings, and then winning wars," said Bocker."

"The creatures fling the most dangerous frequencies around, not only without effort but regardless of consequences."

"What did I tell you?" said my neighbour excitedly. "Force of mind, that's what those people use; that's why their hands are vestigial. Pure will-power." The dwarf seemed to hear him, for he looked towards us. "I am surprised," he sneered, "that you even know of such a thing as will-power. I judged by your reflexes that you had only instincts."

"It was curious that, in facing the man, I felt none of the distaste one has for an abnormality."

""And it all comes of this gallivanting about the Universe. I never did think much of it. Stick to your own planet, is what I say; it's quite big enough. But will they? Not so's you'd notice it. They go flinging themselves into space, and then what happens?" He paused aggrievedly."

"But it is the old story of new generations refusing to be bound by the promises of their forefathers."

"No one but a fool would say that a man who seethes inside like a volcano is calm. I only know that when I see a man so tormented and cheated, and with such a look in his eyes, he is dangerous."

"Those are the methods of Earth; that is the honour of great companies, as you will know to your cost should you have dealings with them. They'll use you, and then break you. . . ."

"Doubtless the first arrow did not kill a lion."

"The English," [Vinski] remarked at length, "have a saying that possession is nine points of the law. It is just the kind of sentiment one would expect to find in a capitalist country."

"We have been but little molested, for we have not the things which most men value."

"The fact that we don't know how to do it doesn't prove its impossibility."

"Many men on earth have the vanity to believe in another life."

"It takes civilised people quite a while to appreciate 'the big lie' technique."

"It is a funny thing that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from some apprehension in the presence of the police."

"A man's the same as the rest of us or 'e's a freak. Stands to reason."

"To take an illustration—a bad one, I admit, but enough for our purpose—one may consider time as a river. You may turn boats adrift on it at many points, and they will all collect together at the same serious obstacle, whether they have travelled a hundred miles or two miles."

"What is the use of life?"

"She showed all that maternal solicitude which so oddly hopes that its child will be outstanding while being absolutely normal, distinguished while being indistinguishable."

""But if they change me shape, and change me voice, and change me hair and change me face, as they say, what is it that is me, at all?" asked Peggy."

""Now," said Miss Arbuthnot, "I expect you'll want to see your personality-coach." [...] "Light vivacity, light vivacity, just say it to yourself over and over whenever you're doing nothing in particular - and even if you are." "But is that really my personality? Is it the real me?" asked Peggy. Miss Carnegie raised her eyebrows. "Your personality?" she said, then she smiled. "Oh, I see. Oh dear, you have got a lot to learn, haven't you? You're confusing us with the television side, I'm afraid. Screen personality is quite different. Oh, yes, indeed. A few years ago it was sultry, then we had sparkling for a time, then we had a stretch of sincerity - let me see what came next? Oh, yes, smouldering, and, for a rather brief time, ingenuousness - but that doesn't suit modern audiences, silly to try it, really - then there was a spell of passionpent - the audiences liked that all right, but it was exceedingly trying for everyone else. This season it's lightly vivacious. So just keep on saying it to yourself until you come to me again next Wednesday. Light-vivacity, light vivacity! Try to throw your weight a little more forward on your toes, you'll find that'll help. Light-vivacity, light-vivacity!" And then to her coiffeur, to her facial-artist, to her deportment-instructor, to her dietician, to a number of others, until, finally, to Miss Higgins."

"There's plenty o' chaps full of book learnin' an' unemployed with it."

"There are some forms of knowledge which it is unwise to spread; men are not yet ready to handle them."

"It boils down to this. If a man, any man, claims to have had an experience which is outside all normal experience, it will be inferred, will it not, that he is in some way not quite a normal man? A small cloud, a mere wrack, of doubt and risk begins to gather above him. It is tenuous, too insubstantial for him to disperse, yet it casts a faint, persistent shadow. There is, I imagine, no such thing as a normal human being, but there is a widespread feeling that there ought to be. Any organisation has a conception of 'the type of man we want here' which is regarded as the normal for its purposes. So every man there attempts more or less to accord to it - organisational man, in fact - and anyone who diverges more than slightly from the type in either his public, or in his private life does so to the peril of his career."

"Ever seen an old man just sitting in the sun, taking it easy? It doesn't have to mean he's senile. It may do, but very likely he can snap out of it and put his mind to work again if it gets really necessary. But mostly he finds it not worth the bother. Less trouble just to let things happen.'"

"Keeping to an unnecessary programme requires resolution."

"'In the end, defeat, and the cold, must come. First to the system, then the galaxy, then the universe, and the rest will be silence. Not to admit that is a foolish vanity.' She paused. 'Yet one grows flowers because they are lovely - not because one wishes them to live for ever.'"

"'But how can you stand it - just going on and on?' It is not easy sometimes - and some of us do give up, but that is a crime, because there is always chance. And it's not quite so monotonous as you think. Each transfer makes a difference. You feel as if the world had become a different place then. The spirit rises in you like sap in spring. . . . And those glands you think so much of are not entirely without effect, because you are never quite the same person with quite the same tastes. Even in one body tastes can change quite a lot in one lifetime, and they inevitably differ slightly between bodies. But you are the same person, you have your memory, yet you are young again, you're hopeful, the world looks brighter, you think you'll be wiser this time. . . . And then you fall in love again, just as sweetly and foolishly as before. It's wonderful - like a re-birth. You can only know just how wonderful if you have been fifty and then become twenty.' 'I can guess,' I said."

"'Thank you, Hester,' Janet said, as she leaned back against the cushion placed behind her. Not that it was necessary to thank a robot, but she had a theory that if you did not practise politeness with robots you soon forgot it with other people."

"'Ingenious you certainly were - like monkeys. But you neglected your philosophers - to your own ruin. Each new discovery was a toy. You never considered its true worth. You just pushed it into your system - a system already suffering from hardening of the arteries. And you were a greedy people. You took each discovery as if it were a bright new garment, but when you put it on you wore it over your old, verminous rags. You had grave need of disinfectants.'"

"'In spite of what they say, two can't live as cheap as one. And wives hanker after certain standards, and ought to have them - within reason, of course.'"

"Hobbies are convenient in the child, but irritant in the adult; which is why women are careful never to have them, but simply to be interested in this and that."

"No discovery is good or evil until men make it that way."

"I had only my thoughts to occupy me, and they were not good company."

"'Do you never work? Does nobody work?' I asked Clytassamine. 'Oh yes - if he wants to,' she said. 'But what about the unpleasant things - the things that must be done?' 'What things?' she asked, puzzled. 'Well, growing food, providing power, disposing of waste, all that kind of thing.' She looked surprised. 'Why, naturally, the machines do all that. You wouldn't expect men to do those things. Good heavens, what have we got brains for?" 'But who looks after the machines - keeps them in order?' 'Themselves, of course.'"

"In the profession of wifehood the exams begin at the church door—and there is never a final degree."

"I guess——" she said, wistfully—"I guess the only thing that's wrong with children is that they grow up to be people like you."

"“Lady,” he said, “some place there’s several freight cars of trouble marked 'Rush', and they’re all headed your way.”"

"I suppose one could scarcely have had innocence and experience. Being young is very exhausting and unsatisfactory, really—although it looks so nice."

"Other things than to fight, there is, even for dragons."