“Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.”
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Isaac Asimov 303
American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston Uni… 1920–1992Related quotes

“What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?”
Source: The Giver

“Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose.”

“Between safety and adventure I choose adventure.”
American on Purpose (2009)
Source: American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“Choosing safety is a choice of life over career.”
Source: Why Men Earn More (2005), p. 35.

“That if any one man, choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.”
1850s, The House Divided speech (1858)
Context: The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the first point gained. But, so far, Congress only had acted; and an indorsement by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable to save the point already gained and give chance for more. This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument of "squatter sovereignty," otherwise called "sacred right of self government," which latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to just this: That if any one man, choose to enslave another, no third man shall be allowed to object.

“Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.”
Les esprits médiocres condamnent d'ordinaire tout ce qui passe leur portée.
Maxim 375.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Song lyrics, The Sensual World (1989)