Quotes from book
Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Journey Beyond Tomorrow
Robert Sheckley

Journey Beyond Tomorrow, reprinted with the title Journey of Joenes, is a 1962 science fiction/satire novel by American writer Robert Sheckley, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in two parts October and November 1962, and the following month by Signet Books.Sphere science fiction London 1962 published the first full edition of the novel.

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“Joenes’s students quickly absorbed the material given to them, passed their tests, and quickly forgot the material. Like many vital young organisms, they were able to eject anything harmful, disturbing, distressing, or merely boring. Of course they also ejected anything useful, stimulating, or thought provoking. This was perhaps regrettable, but it was part of the educative process to which every teacher had to accustom himself.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 8 “How Joenes Taught, and What He Learned” (p. 69)

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“Nature also gives rain and drought, heat and cold; and thoughtfully ensures that the rain rots man’s food, the drought parches it, the heat scalds man’s body, and the cold freezes his limbs.
These are only nature’s milder aspects, not to be compared to the wrathfulness of the sea, the frigid indifference of the mountains, the treachery of the swamp, the depravity of the desert, or the terror of the jungle. But I noticed that nature, in her hatred of mankind, provided that most of the earth’s surface be covered with sea, mountains, swamp, desert, and jungle.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 6 “Joenes and the Three #505justice Truck Drivers” (pp. 44-45)

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“It was the college conservatives who had almost succeeded in electing John Smith to the Presidency of the United States during the last election. The fact that Smith had been dead for twenty years had not dampened their ardor; quite the contrary, many considered this the candidate’s best quality.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 8 “How Joenes Taught, and What He Learned” (pp. 70-71)

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““And do not think,” Manisfree said, “that we absolve ourselves from blame in this situation. Although we teachers purport to know more than other men, we have usually chosen to remain aloof from public life. Practical, hardheaded men of the world have always frightened us; and those men, in their hardheaded way, have brought us to this.”
“Nor is aloofness our only failure,” said Hanley of Anthropology. “Let me point out that we have taught—badly! Our few promising students became teachers, thus insulating themselves as we had. The rest of our students sat through the sleep-provoking drone of our lectures, eager only to depart and take their places in a mad world. We did not touch them, Joenes, we did not move them, and we did not teach them to think.”
“In fact,” said Blake of Physics, “we did quite the contrary. We managed to equip most of our students with a definite hatred of thinking. They learned to view culture with the greatest suspicion, to ignore ethics, and to consider the sciences solely as a means of making money. This was our responsibility and our failure. The outcome of that failure is the world.””

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 9 “The Need for the Utopia” (p. 74)

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“But Joenes then made a speech which was a beauty, and I cannot recall it word for word, but the idea was that laws are made by man and thus must partake of the evil nature of man, and that true morality lies in following the true dictates of the illuminated soul.
“A Commie, huh?””

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

said the lead cop.
Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 2 “Lum’s Meeting With Lety Barrera Joenes” (p. 18)

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“We have propounded our beliefs in various ways, and according to various doctrines. Often we have aroused the passions of men to murder and war. This was perfectly proper, since it brought the problems of morality and religion to their highest and most exquisite pitch, and gave many complicated matters for us theologians to talk about.
We argued always, and we published our various dissenting opinions. But we argued like lawyers in a court, and nobody in his right mind listens to a lawyer. Those were the days of our pride, and we never noticed that men had ceased to pay attention to us.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 6 “Joenes and the Three Truck Drivers” (p. 50)

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“He distrusted all laws, even the best, while at the same time recognizing the necessity for them. For Joenes, a law took its goodness from the nature of the men who administered it. When the nature of those men changed, as Joenes believed was inevitable, then the nature of the law changed, too. When this happened, new laws and new lawgivers had to be found.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 16 “The End of the Journey” (p. 152)

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