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Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines.

Jack McDevitt

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Jack McDevitt
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: April 14
Author
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Nature
Boundaries
Doe
Draw
Mind
Draws
Save
Minds
Lines
Small
Existence
Charts

More quotes by Jack McDevitt

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... the truth is that when your people don't tell you what you need to know, it's a failure of leadership.
Jack McDevitt
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Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it.
Jack McDevitt
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Intelligence is like pornography. I can't define it, but I know if when I see it.
Jack McDevitt
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But, come to think of it, there was no need to wait. Time travelers don't have to wait for anybody.
Jack McDevitt
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Sometimes the cost of integrity is the loss of a friend.
Jack McDevitt
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When things go wrong, the standard management strategy is to decide who takes the blame. This should be an underling, as far down the chain as possible, but preferably with some visibility so people know management means business.
Jack McDevitt
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Life is a walk in the fog. Most people don't know that. They're fooled by the sunlight into thinking they can see what's ahead. But it's the reason they are forever getting lost or falling into ditches or committing matrimony.
Jack McDevitt
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Courage is perhaps our most admirable trait. The man, or woman, who possesses it is able to plunge ahead, despite dangers, despite warnings, despite hazards of all kinds, to attack the task at hand. Often, it is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Jack McDevitt
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We could never know who we truly were until we heard the whispers of the stars.
Jack McDevitt
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The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn't true, but it sounded good.
Jack McDevitt
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Man has always seen himself the peak of creation. The part of the universe that thinks. The purpose for it all. It's no doubt a gratifying view, but the universe may have a different opinion.
Jack McDevitt
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See what the world looks like from orbit. Well, in that way, at least, there was profit to be had. Nobody could look down at the planet, green and blue, with no borders in evidence and no sign of human habitation, and not get his perspective forever altered.
Jack McDevitt
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If you're right, and nobody really cares what's out there, I wonder whether we're even worth saving.
Jack McDevitt
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The problem is that too often the only people who can act don't want change. Power doesn't so much corrupt as it breeds conservatism.
Jack McDevitt
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Truth, beaten down, may well rise again. But there's a reason it gets beaten down. Usually, we don't like it very much.
Jack McDevitt
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The uplifters are forever running around telling blockheads they would do better if they would believe in themselves. But they already do. That is why they are blockheads.
Jack McDevitt
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Tides are like politics. They come and go with a great deal of fuss and noise, but inevitably they leave the beach just as they found it. On those few occasions when major change does occur, it is rarely a good news.
Jack McDevitt
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There is no justice. There are occasional acts of vengeance, or regret, but there's no real justice. In the natural scheme of things, it is not possible.
Jack McDevitt
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Idiots are not responsible for what they do. The real guilt falls on rational people who sit on their hands while morons run wild. You can opt out if you want to. Play it safe. But if you do, don't complain when the roof comes down.
Jack McDevitt
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Throughout our long and sorry history it has been men who supposed themselves to be exemplars of integrity who have done all the damage. Every crusade, whether for decent literary standards or to cover women's bodies or to free the holy land, had been launched, endorsed, and enthusiastically perpetrated by men of character.
Jack McDevitt