One of the troubles with the world is that so few laymen take an interest in science. — Randall Garrett

Any group which makes a claim to infallibility must be very careful not to make any mistakes, and the mistakes that will inevitably occur must be kept secret or explained away—by lies, subterfuges and distortions. And that will eventually cause the collapse of the entire edifice.

“You intend to pray for answers to those questions, my lord?”

“That, yes. But I have found that the best way to ask God about questions like these is to go out and dig up the data yourself.”

Master Sean O’Lochlainn had always been partial to mules. “The mule,” he was fond of saying, “is as much smarter than a horse as a raven is smarter than a falcon. Neither a raven nor a mule will go charging into combat just because some human tells him to.”