Salvor Hardin Quotes

I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing. ~ Isaac Asimov

Why do you think it is stupid to go to windows instead of to doors?"

"Because you advertise what you're trying to hide, silly. If I have a secret, I don't put tape over my mouth and let everyone know I have a secret. I talk just as much as usual, only about something else. Didn't you ever read any of the sayings of Salvor Hardin? He was our first Mayor, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"Well, he used to say that only a lie that wasn't ashamed of itself could possibly succeed. He also said that nothing had to be true, but everything had to sound true. Well, when you come in through a window, it's a lie that's ashamed of itself and it doesn't sound true."

"Then what would you have done?"

"If I had wanted to see my father on top secret business, I would have made his acquaintance openly and seen him about all sorts of strictly legitimate things. And then when everyone knew all about you and connected you with my father as a matter of course, you could be as top secret as you wanted and nobody would ever think of questioning it. ~ Isaac Asimov

The likelihood of treatment (of any one patient) increases with the length of time since the origin of the disease ... Those cases in which the neoplastic process progresses slowly ... are more likely to be transferred to the 'treated' category than to remain in the 'untreated' ... ~ Hardin B. Jones

Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born. ~ Garrett Hardin

I have decided that the hot, burning, inescapable pain is the worst. This pain comes when you finally begin to relax, you finally breathe, thinking that some issue is yesterday's problem, when in fact it's today's problem, tomorrow's problem, and the problem of every day after that. This pain comes when you pour everything into something, into someone, and they betray you so completely - so seemingly on a whim - that the pain crushes you and you feel as if you're barely breathing, barely holding on to that small fraction of whatever is left inside of you begging you to go on, to not give up.
-Tessa ~ Anna Todd

Life is not about hoarding wealth but about spreading it around. God can act to see to it that the creation is nourished, but he uses us humans to see to it that our fellow humans have their needs met. We live in a world where the poor are daily reminders that we too have an obligation to meet, not only to ourselves but also to one another. In order to do this we, like Jesus, need to eschew three things: comfort, safety and security. ~ Michael Hardin

Continuity is at the heart of conservatism: ecology serves that heart. ~ Garrett Hardin

The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. ~ Garrett Hardin

Shock therapy has arguably created a large block of politicized people ready to vote for someone, perhaps a militarist, a quasifascist, or an old-style Communist, to undo the transitional order that has harmed them. ~ Russell Hardin

You aren't my type, just the way that I am not yours. But that's why we are good for each other - we are so different, yet we're the same. You told me once that I bring out the worst in you. Well, you bring out the best in me. I know you feel it, too, Tessa. And yes, I didn't date, until you. You make me want to date, you make me want to be better. I want you to think I am worthy of you; I want you to want me the way I do you. I want to fight with you, even scream at each other until one of us admits we are wrong. I want to make you laugh, and listen to you ramble about classic novels. I just . . . I need you. I know I am cruel at times . . . well, all the time, but that's only because I don't know how else to be." His voice becomes a half whisper, his eyes wild. "This has been me for so long, I have never wanted to be any other way. Until now, until you." - Hardin ~ Anna Todd

Just please stay. I am begging you and I don't beg, Theresa. ~ Anna Todd

Those who nod sagely and quote the tragedy of the commons in relation to environmental problems from pollution of the atmosphere to poaching of national parks tend to forget that Garrett Hardin revised his conclusions many times over thirty years. He recognized, most importantly, that anarchy did not prevail on the common pastures of midieval England in the way he had described [in his 1968 essay in 'Science']. The commoners--usually a limited number of people with defined rights in law--organized themselves to ensure it did not. The pastures were protected from ruin by the tradition of 'stinting,' which limited each herdsman to a fixed number of animals. 'A managed commons, though it may have other defects, is not automatically subject to the tragic fate of the unmanaged commons,' wrote Hardin, though he was still clearly unhappy with commoning arrangements. As with all forms of socialism, of which he regarded commoning as an early kind, Hardin said the flaw in the system lay in the quality of the management. The problem was alays how to prevent the managers from furthering their own interests. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who guards the guardians?

Hardin observed, crucially, that a successful managed common depended on limiting the numbers of commoners, limiting access, and having penalties that deterred.
[...]
None of Hardin's requirements for a successfully managed common is fulfilled by high-seas fishery regimes ~ Charles Clover

An attack on values is inevitably seen as an act of subversion. ~ Garrett Hardin

I have a tape recorder, and I just sing into it. I like to write that way. Sometimes I'll just get melodic ideas, and then I'll go home and sit down and add the lyrics. Or sometimes I'll get a lyric idea that I love. Usually it's pretty combined. Usually I get some kind of a lyrical concept and a melody and work with that. ~ Melora Hardin

Elizabeth Bennett needs to chill" . . "Love is just a transaction. We're all hardwired to desire. We present the correct set of desirable traits and boom! We can turn it on or we can turn it off."
- Hardin ~ Anna Todd (Author Of After)

Lucy stood on her tiptoes and kissed John Hardin on the cheek and pulled him tightly against her. She put his forehead against hers and smiled at him until he blushed. Then, Lucy stepped back, looked at the coffin, and played to the crowd. Who gave my secret away It's just what I always wanted and I can't wait to try it on ~ Pat Conroy

We change and we discover who we really are." – Noah ~ Anna Todd (Author Of After)

No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means. ~ Garrett Hardin

The morality of an act is a function of the state of the system at the time it is performed. ~ Garrett Hardin

A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future. ~ Garrett Hardin

I didn't know there could be someone like Tessa. I had no clue that this obnoxious blonde was walking around waiting to turn my entire life upside down by driving me absolutely insane and making me love her more than I love breathing. ~ Anna Todd

A finite world can support only a finite population; therefore, population growth must eventually equal zero. ~ Garrett Hardin

Throughout history, human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonize-destroy-move on. ~ Garrett Hardin

I do believe everyone on this earth is an artist - some people more than others. But I do believe we are all artists in a certain way. We all have unique abilities. There are people who are meant to make it their life, and that is a different kind of person who would choose to be on that path. ~ Melora Hardin

In a competitive world of limited resources, total freedom of individual action is intolerable ~ Garrett Hardin

I'm a writer. What's your excuse? ~ J. West Hardin

The only kind of coercion I recommend is mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon by the majority of the people affected. ~ Garrett Hardin

You'll never know everything about the person you've chosen to marry. But the more information you have before entering into this commitment, the less chance you will be confronted with unfulfillable expectations. ~ Jerry Hardin

You cannot do only one thing. ~ Garrett Hardin

Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what it was that made physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people. ~ Isaac Asimov

Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity ~ Garrett Hardin

It'll be an unholy muddle, that's for sure," he was saying. "Me and Hardin and Baker all with our claws out for the same seat. The thing will have to be done carefully or we'll end up with out tidy little Whig house divided."
"Why don't you take turns?"
"It's worth thinking about, but no matter how much you'd like politics to be a cotillion it just naturally wants to be a dirt fight. ~ Stephen Harrigan

Indeed, our particular concept of private property, which deters us from exhausting the positive resources of the earth, favors pollution. ~ Garrett Hardin

Economists (and others) who are satisfied with nature-free equations develop a dangerous hubris about the potency of our species ~ Garrett Hardin