Whenever equality is imposed as an absolute, it is always equalized at the least common denominator, and historically, the least common denominator of mankind has been quite low indeed.

Culture masked truth - but there could be only one truth.

Any system that makes a man fear knowledge is an evil system.

...most people are sheep and are perfectly content to be led if they are guaranteed security, a home, job, protection, and a full belly.  In the whole history of humankind, whenever people demanded democracy and total independence and got it, they were willing and eager to trade their precious freedom for security - every time.  Every time.  To the strong-willed, the people who knew what to do and had the guts to do it.  The people who prize personal power above all else.

Humans have historically distrusted and disliked one another to the point of murder and war over such minor differences as religion, color, language, and the like.  That's one rationale Master System had for keeping each colonial world a homogenous race and culture.  Yet my children could never truly comprehend why a Crow or a Sioux or a Cheyenne - or a Janipurian or a Chanchukian or even an Alititian - should be judged in any way but by what kind of people they are.  But such things have always worked on a small scale, Nagy, particularly when we are crisis-driven or bound together by mutual self-interest, but never in the mass.  That is our tragedy.  Never in the mass.

War is the greatest of teachers, and not all of its lessens are bad.  Their cost is just so terribly high.

You underrate yourself....  You did it all yourself.  Opportunity is not accomplishment.  You did it, by ingenuity, by resourcefulness, by gut.  You really are as good as you thought you were, and you have the potential to be much better.

What somebody looks like, what somebody is externally, isn't important.  It's what that individual is on the inside that counts.  Surely that is the lesson of the Well World.  Aren't the different life forms there simply exaggerated examples of what is seem in human society?  Too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too dark, too light.  Be concerned with the contents, not the package.

Deep down, had she really craved the absolute sexual equality she's always thought she wanted, or had she instead, subconsciously really just wanted a reversal of the system?  If the latter, then she really hadn't had any ideals, just rationalizations.

Entropy is the loss of energy within a system, which is self-defeating; that's perversity.  And Murphy's Law is perverse.  Therefore, both of them, and the Imp, are corollary to Finagle's General Statement: 'The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum.'