Skip to content

The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

Another quote →

Topics

History

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)

All David Brin quotes →

You may also like

A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

James Joyce Ulysses (1922)

If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!

Thomas Jefferson

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.