“The attack should not have happened, of course. The rice farmer sergeant had been perfectly right; the Federation could not afford to risk its own great cites to punish the villagers of Venus. He was right—from his viewpoint.
A rice farmer has one logic; the men who live by and for power have another and entirely different logic. Their lives are built on tenuous assumptions, fragile as reputation; they could not afford to ignore a challenge to their power—the Federation could not afford not to punish the insolent colonists.”

— Robert A. Heinlein , book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 10, “While I Was Musing the Fire Burned” (p. 113)

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Robert A. Heinlein 557

American science fiction author 1907–1988

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