Bel Riose

imperial general


Quotes (Authored)

"What do you propose?"

"That you answer my questions."

"Not under threats. I am old enough for life not to mean particularly overmuch."

"My good sir, these are hard times," said Riose, with meaning, "and you have children and friends. You have a country for which you have mouthed phrases of love and folly in the past. Come, if I should decide to use force, my aim would not be so poor as to strike you."

Barr said coldly, "What do you want?"

  • Ducem Barr, Isaac Asimov, Bel Riose

    • "Hari Seldon foresaw the decline of Imperial power and the eventual barbarization of the entire Galaxy."

    Riose laughed suddenly. "He foresaw that? Then he foresaw wrong [...] the Empire is more powerful now than it has been in a millennium. Your old eyes are blinded by the cold bleakness of the border. Come to the inner worlds some day; come to the warmth and the wealth of the center."

    The old man shook his head somberly. "Circulation ceases first at the outer edges. It will take a while yet for the decay to reach the heart. That is, the apparent, obvious-to-all decay, as distinct from the inner decay that is an old story of some fifteen centuries."

  • Ducem Barr, Isaac Asimov, Bel Riose

    • There is a difference between boldness and blindness. There is a place for a decisive gamble when you know your enemy and can calculate the risks at least roughly; but to move at all against an unknown enemy is boldness in itself. You might as well ask why the same man sprints safely across an obstacle course in the day, and falls over the furniture in his room at night.

  • Isaac Asimov, Bel Riose

    • Contact with the enemy is a liberal education.

  • Isaac Asimov, Bel Riose