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The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal.

David Brin

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David Brin
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: October 6
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Novelist
Physicist
Science Fiction Writer
Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Glendale
California
USA
Glen David Brin
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Assumption
Making
Throughout
Individual
Contact
Assumptions
History
Individuals
Fatal
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Habit
Proved
Firsts
Mistake
Encounter
First
Worst
Unfortunate
Made
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Encounters

More quotes by David Brin

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I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings.
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Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us.
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Science Fiction is the jazz of literature.
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The village is coming back, like it or not.
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Anyone who wants simple, pat stories should buy another author's product. The real universe ain't that way, and neither are my fictive ones.
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My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.
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Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases
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Reciprocal accountability, or criticism [is] the only known antidote to error.
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All this talk of using tax policy to 'assess social costs'...what a dumb idea. The only way to stop polluters is to put them against walls and shoot them.
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The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.
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It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.
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But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.
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Prison for the crime of puberty -- that was how secondary school had seemed.
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In the end, the work of diplomats continues even while others fight. So, it's not necessarily true that everyone needs to march.
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Life is not fair... Anyone who says it is, or even that it ought to be, is a fool or worse.
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The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
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Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as ‘enlightenment.'
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I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.
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Change is the very fabric of our time.
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Self-awareness is probably overrated. A complex, self-regulating system doesn't need it in order to be successful, or even smart.
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