Brin Quotes & Sayings

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. — David Brin

If Google Books is successful, others will follow. — Sergey Brin

But Orpheus failed because, like all pakeha, he just couldn't keep his mind on one thing at a time. — David Brin

One of life's joys was to have friends who gave you reality checks ... who would call you on your crap before it rose so high you drowned in it. — David Brin

Generally, health is just so heavily regulated. It's just a painful business to be in. It's just not necessarily how I want to spend my time. — Sergey Brin

In September 1998, one month after they met with Bechtolsheim, Page and Brin incorporated their company, opened a bank account, and cashed his check. On the wall of the garage they put up a whiteboard emblazoned "Google Worldwide Headquarters. — Walter Isaacson

Humorists are precisely the kinds of guys who can cut through the orgy of petty indignation that the aging baby boomers are imposing on this great country. — David Brin

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. — David Brin

Then again: from the critic's point of view, one of the truly wonderful things about the Star Wars universe is that the territory is so sprawling and borrows from so many sources that it's possible to find just about anything here, if you look hard enough. For example, the story of the original movie can also be summarized as, A restless young boy chafes at life on the dusty old family farm, until he meets a wizard and is swept away to a wondrous land where he meets some munchkins, a tin man, a cowardly lion and Harrison Ford as the scarecrow. — David Brin

The greedy and the power-hungry will always look for ways to break the rules, or twist them to their advantage. — David Brin

Generalization is a natural human mental process, and many generalizations are true - in average. What often does promote evil behavior is the lazy, nasty habit of believing that generalizations have anything at all to do with individuals. — David Brin

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. — David Brin

There's a reason why kings built large palaces, sat on thrones and wore rubies all over. There's a whole social need for that, not to oppress the masses, but to impress the masses and make them proud and allow them to feel good about their culture, their government and their ruler so that they are left feeling that a ruler has the right to rule over them, so that they feel good rather than disgusted about being ruled. - George Lucas, New York Times, 1999 — David Brin

If facts are inconvenient, well, damn those who live and work with facts. — David Brin

My education and background thoroughly inform my writing. — David Brin

Suri had a wolf named Minna. They were the best of friends and roamed the forest together. She had tattoos, was always filthy, afraid of nothing, and could do magic. From the first time I met her, I wanted to be Suri ... I still do.
- THE BOOK OF BRIN — Michael J. Sullivan

It's not enough not to be evil. We also actively try to be good. — Sergey Brin

We are, at our core, information pack rats and inveterate correlators. — David Brin

Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice - fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks. — Sergey Brin

As we go forward, I hope we're going to continue to use technology to make really big differences in how people live and work. — Sergey Brin

Science has learned recently that contempt and indignation are addictive mental states. I mean physically and chemically addictive. Literally! People who are self-righteous a lot are apparently doping themselves rhythmically with auto-secreted surges of dopamine, endorphins and enkephalins. Didn't you ever ask yourself why indignation feels so good? — David Brin

That night there was more than one killer in the forest, the next day a lot more ghosts.
The Book of Brin — Michael J. Sullivan

Cuban eyes often look close to tears. Tears never seem far away because both their pain and their joy are always so close to the surface. — Brin-Jonathan Butler

Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don't know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale. — Sergey Brin

She had called in the debt that parents owe a child for bringing her, unasked, into a strange world. One should never make an offer without knowing full well what will happen if it is accepted. — David Brin

But the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole. — Sergey Brin

I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I've ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that's genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That's how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It's cartoon crap. — David Brin

Strong privacy advocates - especially those promoting encryption and anonymity - may deny that this phenomenon is a direct physical corollary of their message, so I will let the reader decide whether a philosophy that relies on cybernetic gates, walls, and coded locks is any different in its underlying basis - fear. — David Brin

Demonstrating some of the proposed new techniques of encrypted uniqueness verification that can be embedded in each customer's use-copy of a given work. — David Brin

While guidebooks might tell you that time collapsed here, another theory says that in Latin America, all of history coexists at once. — Brin-Jonathan Butler

History and geology show what an eyeblink it's been since our current, comfortable culture came about. And yet that culture is using up absolutely everything at a ferocious rate. — David Brin

I had to admit, standing there, that sometimes you just gotta admire the passion of the truly insane
a passion that bulls right past all sense or reason. — David Brin

As simple an act as reading or writing a sentence must be surrounded by perceptory nap and weave ... an itch, a stray memory from childhood, the distant sound of a barking dog, or something left over from the lunch that is found caught between the teeth. — David Brin

I wish there were a hundred services with which I could easily look at such a book; it would have saved me a lot of time, and it would have spared Google a tremendous amount of effort. — Sergey Brin

There was a time, in living memory, when this nation bestrode the planet like a titan. — David Brin

I regret having been the bearer of ambiguous tidings. — David Brin

Admit that there is some level that would make even you call yourself the victim of class war. — David Brin

As for "Don't be evil," we have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good-always do the right, ethical thing. Ultimately, "Don't be evil" seems the easiest way to summarize it." — Sergey Brin

True brilliance has a well-known positive correlation with decency, much of the time
a fact the rest of us rely on, more than we ever know. The real world doesn't roil with as many crazed artists, psychotic generals, dyspeptic writers, maniacal statesmen, insatiable tycoons, or mad scientists as you see in dramas. — David Brin

One of the rules I try to follow is that normal people are going to be involved even in heroic events. — David Brin

The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now. — David Brin

Science gives man what he needs, but magic gives man what he wants. — David Brin

I suppose, all told, I've done more good than evil in my life, but that's incidental, a product of happenstance and the bizarre caprices of the world. — David Brin

The three basic material rights
continuity, mutual obligation, and the pursuit of happiness. — David Brin

Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on. — David Brin

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens. — David Brin

He watches a vid of Brin reading from the Journal of the Whills: "The truth in our soul, Is that nothing is true. The question of life Is what then do we do? The burden is ours To penance, we hew. The Force binds us all From a certain point of view." Addar fails to understand what it means, but he admits: He enjoys listening to Brin. — Chuck Wendig

If an outsider perceives 'something wrong' with a core scientific model, the humble and justified response of that curious outsider should be to ask 'what mistake am I making?' before assuming 100% of the experts are wrong. — David Brin

It takes great wisdom, maturity, and force of will to overcome ingrained human egotism and say
"Hey, I can fool myself! I might even be wrong, from time to time." — David Brin

The conflict is an old one. George Washington and other followers of the Enlightenment Movement wrote of their belief in an imminent maturity of humankind. The ancient and cruel feudal ways were splitting asunder at last; therefore, how could truth and freedom not prevail? In fact, the Enlightenment changed humanity forever. Yet its followers forgot something important
that each generation is invaded by a new wave of barbarians ... its children. Just as Washington, Franklin, and their peers took joy in toppling the tyranny of Church and King, so the youths of the Romantic Movement thrived on jeering the lofty ideals of their predecessors. — David Brin

The name was supposed to be 'Googol,' which is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It was before the Google spellchecker existed. — Sergey Brin

EVERY MOMENT IN business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won't make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. — Peter Thiel

Metaphorically speaking, some very bright people suggest that citizens of the twenty-first century will be best protected by masks and shields, while I prefer the image of a light saber. — David Brin

Where were answers to the truly deep questions? Religion promised those, though always in vague terms, while retreating from one line in the sand to the next. Don't look past this boundary, they told Galileo, then Hutton, Darwin, Von Neumann, and Crick, always retreating with great dignity before the latest scientific advance, then drawing the next holy perimeter at the shadowy rim of knowledge. — David Brin

A method of schooling founded by the Italian educator Maria Montessori that emphasizes collaborative, explorative learning, and whose alumni include Google's founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales; video-game designer Will Wright; Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos; chef Julia Child; and rap impresario Sean Combs. — Daniel Coyle

The health of an enlightened and progressive society is measured by how vibrant is its science fiction, since that is where true self-critique and appraisal and hope lie. — David Brin

David Brin is a technological determinist. He thinks that we understand the trend and we need to hop on it. I don't have any such illusions. — Bruce Sterling

Every time humans discovered a new resource, or technique for using mass and energy, one side effect has always been pollution. Why should the information age be any different from those of coal, petroleum, or the atom? — David Brin

Would we be tormenting ourselves over the Kennedy assassination today if fifty cameras had been rolling, instead of just poor Abraham Zapruder's? — David Brin

In the future, search engines should be as useful as HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey-but hopefully they won't kill people. — Sergey Brin

But honestly, if you do a rigorous survey of my work, I'll bet you'll find that biology is a theme far more often than physical science. — David Brin

Reciprocal accountability, or criticism [is] the only known antidote to error. — David Brin

Sergey Brin has said to me, like, 10 times now, 'Why do you bother doing books? Why don't you just put all this stuff on the Internet?' It's because 10 years from now, my book will still be sitting on someone's coffee table or in a waiting room. — Rick Smolan

Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable - and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach. — David Brin

We've seen a massive attack on the freedom of the web. Governments are realizing the power of this medium to organize people and they are trying to clamp down across the world, not just in places like China and North Korea; we're seeing bills in the United States, in Italy, all across the world. — Sergey Brin

(Brin) 'How good is your lawyer, on a scale of Atticus Finch to Franklin and Bash? — Lisa Henry

In other words, I look through my eyes and see only a version of the world, a version that can be, and often is, colored or twisted by what I want to see. Another person may witness the same events, and yet observe something entirely different. — David Brin

We aren't a curse upon the world. We are her new eyes. Her brain, testes, ovaries ... her ambition and her heart. Her voice. So sing. (556) — David Brin

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. — David Brin

In historical fact, all of history's despots, combined, never managed to get things done as well as this rambunctious, self-critical civilization of free and sovereign citizens, who have finally broken free of worshipping a ruling class and begun thinking for themselves. Democracy can seem frustrating and messy at times, but it delivers. — David Brin

A neurosis defends itself by coming up with rationalizations to explain away bizarre behavior. — David Brin

Martianus Capella strove to collect what he considered the highest accomplishments of his culture, the Seven Liberal Arts, and his collection - in weird poesical format - seemed a candle to many, during the Dark Ages. That story inspired Isaac Asimov, by the way, to write his famed Foundation sci-fi series. — David Brin

You don't have conversations with microprocessors. You tell them what to do, then helplessly watch the disaster when they take you literally! — David Brin

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. — David Brin

Brin tilted his head. 'For a moment I thought you were a dirty little tramp like the rest of us, but then you go and ruin it. For future reference, stories about anonymous hookups in alleys should not end up with you going to the library alone.'
'I had a paper due.'
Brin burst out laughing and hugged him. 'You're too adorable for words.' — Lisa Henry

We want Google to be the third half of your brain. — Sergey Brin

At the turn of the [21st] century it was really Sergey Brin at Google who just had the thought of, well, if we give away all the information services, but we make money from advertising, we can make information free and still have capitalism. But the problem with that is it reneges on the social contract where people still participate in the formal economy. And it's a kind of capitalism that's totally self-defeating because it's so narrow. It's a winner-take-all capitalism that's not sustaining. — Jaron Lanier

Too few people in computer science are aware of some of the informational challenges in biology and their implications for the world. We can store an incredible amount of data very cheaply. — Sergey Brin

Once you consider the premise that Episodes I through III are not live-action movies with extensive special effects, but rather animated features with a few living actors rotoscoped in, many of the more common critical objections to the movies simply wither away. — David Brin

It may be that the best time for Otherness has already passed. Clearly part of the basis for this renaissance has been wealth, especially the unprecedented comfort enjoyed by the vast majority of Westerners since World War II, in which very few of us can even conceive of starving — David Brin

Your neighbors are not all sheep. Your political opponents are not all evil or fools. Try talking to those you despise. They are your fellow citizens. And together, we are not lesser than any "greatest generation.". — David Brin

Any conversation I have about innovation starts with the ultimate goal. — Sergey Brin

So if it appears that my argument supports the necessity of lawyers, please accept that I say it with reluctant awareness that things would be worse without them. — David Brin

You always hear the phrase, money doesn't buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it's not really true. I got a new car because the old one's lease expired. — Sergey Brin

When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else. — David Brin

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity? — David Brin

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

Indeed, the maligned American pastime of baseball may be by-far the greatest and best sport by one criterion, when it comes to emulating and training for genuinely useful Neolithic skills! Think about it. The game consists of lots of patient waiting and watching (stalking), throwing with incredible accuracy and speed, sprinting, dodging ... and hitting moving objects real hard with clubs! And arguing. Hey, what else could you possibly need? Now, tell me, how do soccer or basketball prepare you to survive in the wild, hm? — David Brin

Analog, or Asimov's Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. — David Brin

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. — David Brin

You can make money without doing evil. — Sergey Brin

Whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party. — Sergey Brin

Freedom was wonderful beyond relief. But with it came that bitch, Duty. — David Brin

Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies. — David Brin

In contrast, markets - oft mythologized as "natural" are the most unnatural things going. Libertarians will tell you "market laws are laws of nature", what baloney. Markets - and the other great modernist cornucopian tools - are magnificent wealth generating machines, built ad-hoc, through trial and error, constantly fine-tuned and refined, tinkered, adjusted. — David Brin

Prison for the crime of puberty
that was how secondary school had seemed. — David Brin

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error - a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism. — David Brin

It is a total mystery how we evolved minds capable of piloting cars through wild maneuvers using a wrist to steep while shouting at a cell phone. The creationists are fools for focusing on animal evolution. Darwin explains nature! He has more difficulty explaining us. — David Brin

Fortunately, human beings are remarkably diverse models to work from. — David Brin

Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you're able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power. — Sergey Brin