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It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

— David Brin Brightness Reef (1995)

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More quotes by David Brin

“Where there is mind, there is always solution,” Keneenk taught. All problems contained the elements of their answer.

Startide Rising (1983)

One more piece for the Great Jigsaw puzzle.

Knowledge isn’t restrained by the limits of Malthus. Information doesn’t need topsoil to grow in, only freedom. Given eager minds and experimentation, it feeds itself like a chain reaction.

Earth (1990)

Nation states are archaic leftovers from when each man feared the tribe over the hill, an attitude we can’t afford anymore.

Earth (1990)

The variety of inventive ideas—and ideologies—that people can come up with never ceases to amaze me, especially when they’re stoked by the ultimate drug, self-righteousness.

Kiln People (2002)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: David Brin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.