Social responsibility above the level of family, or at most of tribe, requires imagination-- devotion, loyalty, all the higher virtues -- which a man must develop himself; if he has them forced down him, he will vomit them out.

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.

My old man claimed that the more complicated the law the more opportunity for scoundrels.

I have spent too much of my life opening doors for cats—I once calculated that, since the dawn of civilization, nine hundred and seventy-eight man-centuries have been used up that way. I could show you figures.

Any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together.

Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.

Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man.

Each man is his own prisoner, in solitary confinement for life.

By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man -- man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him.