Explore Quotes by David Brin

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up.

The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.

Change is the very fabric of our time.

The village is coming back, like it or not.

...where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge.

Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.

Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.