“There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven’s “All The Bridges Rusting.””

— James Nicoll

In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri … despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering. Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/yet-more-sf-about-women-by-women, 2015 2010s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 25, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It cam…" by James Nicoll?

James Nicoll69

Canadian fiction reviewer 1961

Related quotes

“I decided not to cross any bridges I had burned behind me.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Time for the Stars

Source: Time for the Stars (1956), Chapter 7, “19,900 Ways” (p. 69)

“These hearts rust just as iron rusts; and indeed they are polished through the recitation of the Qur’an.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Irshadul Qulub; Page 78
Shi'ite Hadith

“Rust rust rust
in the engines of love and time”

Leonard Cohen book Flowers for Hitler

"Front Lawn", Flowers for Hitler (1964)

“At this stage of my life with the permission of my family I came up with a sort of square rules of what I want to do from here onwards, the rules are very simple I said that I have to look after myself, I have to look after my family, I have to look after my friends and I have to do my charities in this order.”

Nasser Khalili (1945) British-Iranian scholar, collector and philanthropist

Interview on The Art Of Collecting by Sky Arts - Professor Nasser David Khalili episode (February 21, 2018) https://vimeo.com/256957904

“Rule, after you have first learned to submit to rule.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Diogenes Laërtius (trans. C. D. Yonge) The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1853), "Solon", sect. 12, p. 29.

“I call myself a Trump-sexual. I have a very antiwhite bedroom policy, but Trump is kind of like the exception to that rule.”

Milo Yiannopoulos (1984) British journalist

Milo Yiannopoulos Doesn’t Have Feelings https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/milo-yiannopoulos-doesnt-have-feelings.html The New York Times (4 May 2016) 2016

“to a defendant who called the plaintiff a "witch" after the judge ruled in the plaintiff's favor: You gotta learn to behave yourself, madam. I have a feeling you have a pretty hot temper - not as hot as mine. That's all - out!”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn9XiHQBe1k
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dress, stand, speak properly

“A project like Pangea, which enables us to enter in to the situations of others, imaginatively, is fulfilling what the religions call the Golden Rule…”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

"Karen Armstrong Joins Pangea Day!" (2008) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ5ZmB2kdo0 Context: A project like Pangea, which enables us to enter in to the situations of others, imaginatively, is fulfilling what the religions call the Golden Rule... going into one's own experience, and going into other's experience, and seeing the world from another perspective — that's what we desperately need in our dangerously polarized world.

“If I rest, I rust.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“I swear again, I had been told that they came to rule for 500 years. but how? you would rule as long as the people are satisfied with your rule, as long as they want you only.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by el-Sisi during a military conference (28 April 2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC93fn9s3-c. 2013

“There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven’s “All The Bridges Rusting.””

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

James Nicoll69

Related quotes

Related topics