Quotes of the Day, Foundation Edition
Nov. 8th, 2003 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularIsaac Asimov had a way with words at times, and some things we think are a new and troubling phenomenon, he saw as ageless.
Reprinted without permission, from Foundation, Part II, "The Encyclopedists", I submit the following for consideration:
"That insufferable, dim-witted donkey! That--"
"Not at all. He's merely a product of his environment. He doesn't understand much except 'I got a gun and you ain't.'"
"The message from Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who wrote it were men of action rather than men of words. It boils down easily and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, when in symbols is what you see, and which in words, roughly translated is, 'You give us what we want in a week, or we beat the hell out of you and take it anyway.'
"No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?"
"And where is the analysis?"
"That is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vauge gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything cancelled out.
"Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire."
The above were written in the year 1951.
Close entry.
Reprinted without permission, from Foundation, Part II, "The Encyclopedists", I submit the following for consideration:
"That insufferable, dim-witted donkey! That--"
"Not at all. He's merely a product of his environment. He doesn't understand much except 'I got a gun and you ain't.'"
"The message from Anacreon was a simple problem, naturally, for the men who wrote it were men of action rather than men of words. It boils down easily and straightforwardly to the unqualified statement, when in symbols is what you see, and which in words, roughly translated is, 'You give us what we want in a week, or we beat the hell out of you and take it anyway.'
"No loophole, is there, Dr. Pirenne?"
"And where is the analysis?"
"That is the interesting thing. The analysis was the most difficult of the three by all odds. When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vauge gibberish, useless qualifications - in short, all the goo and dribble - he found he had nothing left. Everything cancelled out.
"Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire."
The above were written in the year 1951.
Close entry.
