Isaac Asimov

Asceticism among a ruling class—except for public show—is very rare.

It is not important what can or cannot be done. What is important is what people will or will not believe can be done.

“But it’s been quiet under Cleon. And we’ve had fifty years of peace.”

“Yes, but soldiers who are well-paid would resent having that pay reduced just because there is peace. Admirals resist mothballing ships and having themselves reduced in rank simply because there is less for them to do. So the credits still go—unproductively—to the armed forces and vital areas of the social good are allowed to deteriorate. That’s what I call decay. Don’t you?”

But it seemed so likely to him that on every world the earliest histories were medleys of self-serving heroisms and minidramas that were meant as morality plays and were not to be taken literally. It was surely true of Helicon, yet you would find scarcely a Heliconian who would not swear by all the tales told and insist it was all true history.

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income.

“As for status, that’s the sort of push and pull I’d just as soon avoid. I’ve seen many people with status, but I’m still looking for a happy one. Status won’t sit still under you; you have to continually fight to keep from sinking.

I have always dealt with economic forces, rather than philosophic forces, but you can’t split history into neat little nonoverlapping divisions. For instance, religions tend to accumulate wealth when successful and that eventually tends to distort the economic development of a society.

“It strikes me that no one could possibly want to be Emperor.”

“No sane person would, I agree, but the ‘Imperial wish,’ as it is frequently called, is like a disease that, when caught, drives out sanity. And the closer you get to high office, the more likely you are to catch the disease.”

Does said, “You’re not a…a believer?”

“I’m a scholar,” said Mycelium with obvious pride.

“My field of specialization is the mathematical analysis of social structure.”

“Sounds horrible.”

There is too much history and there is too little of it that is told.

We might not be able to give out the news for security reasons—that’s the excuse they always advance for hiding bad news—but I would know.