“The successful scientist and the raving crank are separated by the quality of their inspirations. But I suspect that this amounts, in practice, to a difference, not so much in ability to notice analogies as in ability to reject foolish analogies and pursue helpful ones.”

"Darwin's Middle Road", p. 66
The Panda's Thumb (1980)

Source: Daemon (2006), Chapter 45: Respawning, Character: Sobel

Source: Success! (1977), p. 14; often quoted in the form: Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility.
Context: Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility. You have to assume all the problems, difficulties and doubts of other people, and to reflect back your capacity for decision-making and action, and for enduring without visible signs of worry or panic. In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have (and which is the most difficult one of all to learn or fake) is the ability to take on responsibility. It is easy to be responsible for things you control and are sure of; but to be successful you must make yourself responsible for the blunders of the people who work for you as well. Responsibility requires a highly developed ego and a good deal of courage, but it is ultimately the one test you cannot afford to fail. You must be willing to accept personal responsibility, for the success of your assignments, for the actions of the people who work for you and for the goals you have accepted or been given.

Vol. I, Ch. 2: Of the Prophetic Language
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: Yet sometimes vegetables and animals are, by certain epithets or circumstances, extended to other significations; as a Tree, when called the tree of life or of knowledge; and a Beast, when called the old serpent, or worshiped. When a Beast or Man is put for a kingdom, his parts and qualities are put for the analogous parts and qualities of the kingdom; as the head of a Beast, for the great men who precede and govern; the tail for the inferior people, who follow and are governed; the heads, if more than one, for the number of capital parts, or dynasties, or dominions in the kingdom, whether collateral or successive, with respect to the civil government; the horns on any head, for the number of kingdoms in that head, with respect to military power...

1999

Audio Interview http://www.geekson.com/archives/archiveepisodes/2006/episode080406.htm with Geekson http://www.geekson.com in Episode 54, (4 August 2006)
Context: There are many different kinds of writers, I like to use the analogy of architects and gardeners. There are some writers who are architects, and they plan everything, they blueprint everything, and they know before the drive the first nail into the first board what the house is going to look like and where all the closets are going to be, where the plumbing is going to run, and everything is figured out on the blueprints before they actually begin any work whatsoever. And then there are gardeners who dig a little hole and drop a seed in and water it with their blood and see what comes up, and sort of shape it. They sort of know what seed they've planted — whether it's an oak or an elm, or a horror story or a science fiction story, but they don't how big it's going to be, or what shape it's going to take. I am much more a gardener than an architect.

"Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proposed by Maximilien Robespierre" (24 April, 1793)
Original: (fr) XXXV. Les hommes de tous les pays sont frères, et les différents peuples doivent s'entraider selon leur pouvoir comme les citoyens du même état.

Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There