1
Chapulier's Rule (the law of least resistance). If the machine is not too bright and incapable of reflection, it does whatever you tell it to do. But a smart machine will first consider which is more worth its while: to perform the given task or, instead, to figure some way out of it.. The Great Mendacitor, for example, for nine years in charge of the Saturn meliorization project, did absolutely nothing on that planet, sending out piles of fake progress reports, invoices, requisition forms, and either bribed his supervisors or kept them in a state of electronic shock. .Unknown
2
A man can control only what he comprehends, and comprehend only what he is able to put into words. The inexpressible therefore is unknowable. By examining future stages in the evolution of language we come to learn what discoveries, changes and social revolutions the language will be capable, some day, of reflecting.Unknown
3
The opportunity for evil in itself does not suffice; people need a rationale as well. Consider how unpleasant, how awkward it must be when your neighbor, catching his breath (and that can happen anytime), screams, 'Why?' - or, 'Aren't you ashamed?! ' It's embarrassing to stand there without a ready answer. A crowbar makes a poor rebuttal, everybody senses that. The whole trick lies in having the proper grounds to brush aside such aggravating objections. Contemptuously. Everyone wants to commit a villainy without having to feel like a villain.Unknown
4
We owe our liberation to chemistry, " he went on. "For all perception is but a change in the concentration of hydrogen ions on the surface of the brain cells. Seeing me, you actually experience a disturbance in the sodium-potassium equilibrium across your neuron membranes. So all we have todo is send a few well-chosen molecules down into those cortical mitochondria, activate the right neurohumoral-synaptic transmission effector sites, and your fondest dreams come true. But you knowall this, " he concluded, subdued.Unknown
5
A journey is a dismal thing when there can be no homecoming.Unknown
6
Simulant - something that doesn't exist but pretends to.... Dissimulant - an object that exists but pretends not to.Unknown
7
All the wild beasts have been extinct for years, but it's perfectly possible to synthesize them autobiogenically. On the other hand, why be bound to what was once produced by natural evolution? The spokesman for surrealist zoology was most eloquent - we should populate our preserves with bold, original conceptions, not slavish imitations, we should forge the New, not plagiarize the Old.Unknown
8
Progress is a wonderful thing of course, and I can appreciate the lactiferins that are sprinkled on the pasture to turn the grass to cheese. And yet this lack of cows, however rational it may be, gives one the feeling that the fields and meadows, deprived of their phlegmatic, bemusedly ruminating presence, are pitifully empty.Unknown
9
He also said - pointedly - that space travel nowadays was an escape from the problems of Earth. That is, one took off for the stars in the hope that the worst would happen and be done with in one's absence. And indeed I couldn't deny that more than once I had peered anxiously out the porthole - especially when returning from a long voyage - to see whether or not our planet resembled a burnt potato.Unknown
10
Come now, Tichy. For half a century civilization hasn't been left to its own devices. A hundred years ago a certain Dior was dictating fashions in clothing. Today this sort of regulating has embraced all walks of life. If prostheticism is voted in, I assure you, in a couple of years everyone will consider the possession of a soft, hairy, sweating body to be shameful and indecent. A body needs washing, deodorizing, caring for, and even then it breaks down, while in a prostheticized society you can snap on the loveliest creations of modern engineering. What woman doesn't want to have silver iodide instead of eyes, telescoping breasts, angel's wings, iridescent legs, and feet that sing with every step?.Unknown
11
What was civilization ever, really, but the attempt by man to talk himself into being good?Unknown