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An optimist is somebody who thinks our various political and social systems, schools and churches, support groups and Boy Scout troops, jury trials and congressional committees, are on the up-and-up. That they are intended for the benefit of the members. The reality is that they are designed to keep everyone in line.
Jack McDevitt
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The idiots always rose to the top and made policy.
It explained a lot of things.
Jack McDevitt
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Don't assume that a species is intelligent because it produces intelligent individuals.
Jack McDevitt
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What would happen is that people like Geroge and Alyx would grow old and die chasing a dream. Although there were probably worse things to do with one's life.
Jack McDevitt
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Secrecy is a compulsive reflex in this country. It strangles thought, delays scientific progress, and destroys integrity.
Jack McDevitt
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If you're paying attention to your wardrobe, Rudy believed, your mind isn't sufficiently occupied.
Jack McDevitt
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The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn't true, but it sounded good.
Jack McDevitt
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Faith has its price. When misfortune strikes the true believer, he assumes he has done something to deserve punishment, but isn't quite certain what. The realist, recognizing that he lives in a Darwinian universe, is simply grateful to have made it to another sunset.
Jack McDevitt
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Show me what a people admire, and I will tell you everything about them that matters.
Jack McDevitt
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We're talking about something we all want very much to find. And that automatically makes Ed's conclusions suspect.
Jack McDevitt
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There are few professions whose primary objective is to advance the cause of humanity rather than simply to make money or accrue power. Among this limited group of humanitarians I would number teachers, nurses, bookstore owners, and bartenders.
Jack McDevitt
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Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves.
We watch television, Dave said.
Jack McDevitt
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I can't imagine, said Dupre, a better way to unnerve people than to tell them there's no cause for alarm.
Jack McDevitt
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One should always be skeptical. That's always been our problem. We have too many believers.
Believers in what?
In everything.
Jack McDevitt
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Most government and corporate leaders would have trouble getting people to follow them out of a burning building. One way you can tell the worst of them is that they talk about leadership a lot. I doubt Winston Churchill ever used the word. Or, for that matter, Attila the Hun.
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Faith is conviction without evidence, and sometimes even in the face of contrary evidence. In some quarters, this quality is perceived as a virtue.
Jack McDevitt
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(He remarked) that anyone who truly wished to develop tolerance toward other human beings should start by casting aside any and all religious affiliation. When challenged by one of the other guests, he had asked innocently whether anyone could name a single person put to death or driven from his home by an atheist over theological matters.
Jack McDevitt
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The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.
Jack McDevitt
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Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely good news.
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He would make a good manager, but he had a little too much integrity to survive in a top job.
Jack McDevitt
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Her experience had taught her that people who insisted on having others recognize their outstanding qualities usually didn't have any.
Jack McDevitt
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Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.
Jack McDevitt
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Organized mayhem, Nick commented, seems to be the chief preoccupation of intelligent species everywhere.
Jack McDevitt
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Mac continued to write scathing commentary on assorted hypocrisies in high places and low, without which hypocrisies, he cheerfully conceded, civilized life would be impossible.
Jack McDevitt
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If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving.
Jack McDevitt
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Quote of the day
Yet would we die as some have done: Beating a way for the rising sun.
Arna Bontemps
Jack McDevitt
Born:
April 14, 1935
(age 89)
Bio:
Jack McDevitt is an American science fiction author whose novels frequently deal with attempts to make contact with alien races, and with archaeology or xenoarchaeology.
Known for:
The Engines of God (1994)
Chindi (2002)
Deepsix (2001)
A Talent for War (1989)
Ancient Shores (1996)
Most used words:
people
truth
years
problem
evidence
time
macallister
experience
human
life
idiots
species
reality
faith
power
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