Foundation and Empire

An uninformed public tends to confuse scholarship with magicianry, and love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.

• p. 182 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"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?"

• p. 183 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"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."

• p. 186 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

The essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it.

• p. 188 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Hober Mallow worked otherwise. And Salvor Hardin. They let others take the uncertain paths of force, while they maneuvered surely and quietly.

• p. 188 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

The mere act of not being a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active helper.

• p. 192 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

How much of this information is definite; and how much is simply fury?

• p. 192 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Unsafe, sire. He lives in the past. He is a dreamer of ancient times, or rather, of the myths of what ancient times used to be. Such men are harmless in themselves, but their queer lack of realism makes them fools for others.

• p. 197 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

An incompetent traitor is no danger. It is rather the capable men who must be watched.

• p. 197 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Even a romantic idiot can be a deadly weapon when an unromantic rebel uses him as a tool.

• p. 198 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

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.

• p. 209 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

There's probably no one so easily bribed, but he lacks even the fundamental honesty of honorable corruption. He doesn't stay bribed; not for any sum.

• p. 213 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Contact with the enemy is a liberal education.

• p. 219 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

A weak general could never have endangered us, obviously. A strong general during the time of a weak Emperor would never have endangered us, either; for he would have turned his arms towards a much more fruitful target. Events have shown that three-fourths of the Emperors of the last two centuries were rebel generals and viceroys before they were Emperors.

So it is only the combination of strong Emperor and strong general that can harm the Foundation; for a strong Emperor can not be dethroned easily, and a strong general is forced to turn outwards, past the frontiers.

But, what keeps the Emperor strong? What kept Cleon strong? It's obvious. He is strong, because he permits no strong subjects. A courtier who becomes too rich, or a general who becomes too popular is dangerous. All the recent history of the Empire proves that to any Emperor intelligent enough to be strong.

Riose won victories, so the Emperor grew suspicious. All the atmosphere of the times forced him to be suspicious. Did Riose refuse a bribe? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. Did his most trusted courtier suddenly favor Riose? Very suspicious; ulterior motives. It wasn't the individual acts that were suspicious. Anything else would have done—which is why our individual plots were unnecessary and rather futile. It was the success of Riose that was suspicious. So he was recalled, and accused, condemned, murdered. The Foundation wins again.

• p. 233 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Despite the frothy shrillness of the televisors, "intelligence," "espionage," and "spy stuff" are at best a sordid business of routine betrayal and bad faith. It is excused by society since it is in the "interest of the State," but since philosophy seemed always to lead Captain Pritcher to the conclusion that even in that holy interest, society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience—he discouraged philosophy.

• p. 246 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Mayor Indbur—successively the third of that name—was the grandson of the first Indbur, who had been brutal and capable; and who had exhibited the first quality in spectacular fashion by his manner of seizing power, and the latter by the skill with which he put an end to the last farcical remnants of free election and the even greater skill with which he maintained a relatively peaceful rule.

Mayor Indbur was also the son of the second Indbur, who was the first Mayor of the Foundation to succeed to his post by right of birth—and who was only half his father, for he was merely brutal.

So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable—but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.

Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself.

To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry," indecision when right was "caution," and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination."

• pp. 246-247 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

As a servant of the State, I must serve faithfully—and he serves most faithfully who serves Truth.

• p. 250 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Mayor Indbur frowned and grew suddenly tired of his patient exposition. It occurred to him that there was a fallacy in condescension, since it was mistaken for permission to argue eternally; to grow contentious; to wallow in dialectic.

• p. 251 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. It is not recorded, incidentally, that the lesson has ever been permanently learned.

• p. 252 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.

• p. 259 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

When others bent their knee, [Ebling Mis] refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots.

• p. 265 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Inevitably, he said, "What is the meaning of this?"

It is the precise question and the precise wording thereof that has been put to the atmosphere on such occasions by an incredible variety of men since humanity was invented. It is not recorded that it has ever been asked for any purpose other than dignified effect.

• p. 266 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"...you won't believe this, but"—The story that followed lasted considerably, and Iwo didn't believe it.

• p. 273 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"Here you have a whole culture brought up to a blind, blubbering belief that a folk hero of the past has everything all planned out and is taking care of every little piece of their unprintable lives. The thought-pattern evoked has religious characteristics, and you know what that means."

"Not a bit."

[...] "Characterized by strong faith reactions. Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly complete mental disruption results. Mild cases—hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced cases—madness and suicide."

• p. 293 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

The Mule has been politic enough to promise to safeguard the property and profits of the great Traders and they have gone over to him. [...] It's apparently an insurmountable temptation to give up endangered political power, if that will maintain your hold over economic affairs.

• p. 295 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

No revolution can be successful without the control of at least part of the Navy.

• p. 298 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"Those men are magicians and may be powerful."

"Pugh," muttered Inchney, "the mistiness of distance hides the truth. The Foundation is but a world. Its citizens are but men. If you blast them, they die."

• p. 312 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

It is well-known that the friend of a conqueror is but the last victim.

• p. 313 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

"He made boasts. But boasts are wind and deeds are hard."

lnchney laughed noiselessly. "Deeds are hard indeed, until begun."

• p. 313 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

Is this really an emperor? For somehow I thought emperors were greater and wiser than ordinary men.

• p. 315 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

If a strong man can lift five hundred pounds, it does not mean that he is eager to do so continuously.

• p. 339 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)

The human mind works at low efficiency. Twenty percent is the figure usually given. When, momentarily, there is a flash of greater power it is termed a hunch, or insight, or intuition.

• p. 340 ("The Foundation Trilogy", Easton Press, 2003)