Bail Channis

"If there was ever any science to History, it has been quite lost in this region of the Galaxy."

Channis grinned broadly, "I know what you mean. Rather barren, isn't it?"

"Not if you enjoy personal chronicles of rulers. Probably unreliable, I should say, in both directions. Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer. I find it all remarkably useless."

• Second Foundation
  • p. 371 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Men who rule by tricks of the mind need not necessarily be men in obvious power.

• Second Foundation
  • p. 378 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

[Hari Seldon] created his Foundations according to the laws of psychohistory, but who knew better than he that even those laws were relative. He never created a finished product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.

• Second Foundation
  • p. 395 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)