Homer Mallow

There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in the face of death, or it's useless.

• Foundation
  • p. 129 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

A sincere friendship through trade will be many times better than an insecure overlordship, based on the hated supremacy of a foreign spiritual power, which, once it weakens ever so slightly, can only fall entirely and leave nothing substantial behind except an immortal fear and hate.

• Foundation
  • p. 154 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"Mallow, you've put on a beautiful show, so don't spoil it by jumping too high. You can't seriously consider running for mayor. Mob enthusiasm is a powerful thing, but it's notoriously fickle."

"Exactly!" said Mallow, grimly, "so we must coddle it, and the best way to do that is to continue the show."

• Foundation
  • p. 161 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

It's very hard to bear up under little things when the patriotic uplift of imminent danger is not present.

• Foundation
  • pp. 166-167 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

The Empire has always been a realm of colossal resources. They've calculated everything in planets, in stellar systems, in whole sectors of the Galaxy. Their generators are gigantic because they thought in gigantic fashion.

But we,—we, our little Foundation, our single world almost without metallic resources,—have had to work with brute economy. Our generators have had to be the size of our thumb, because it was all the metal we could afford. We had to develop new techniques and new methods,—techniques and methods the Empire can't follow because they have degenerated past the stage where they can make any really vital scientific advance.

With all their nuclear shields, large enough to protect a ship, a city, an entire world; they could never build one to protect a single man. To supply light and heat to a city, they have motors six stories high,—I saw them—where ours could fit into this room. And when I told one of their nuclear specialists that a lead container the size of a walnut contained a nuclear generator, he almost choked with indignation on the spot.

Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out.

The whole war is a battle between those two systems; between the Empire and the Foundation; between the big and the little. To seize control of a world, they bribe with immense ships that can make war, but lack all economic significance. We, on the other hand, bribe with little things, useless in war, but vital to prosperity and profits.

A king, or a Commdor, will take the ships and even make war Arbitrary rulers throughout history have bartered their subjects' welfare for what they consider honor, and glory, and conquest. But it's still the little things in life that count—and Asper Argo won't stand up against the economic depression that will sweep all Korell in two or three years.

• Foundation
  • p. 167 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)