Epigrams
Salvor Hardin was well known in the Foundation for his epigrams, which recur throughout the series, including:
- "It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety".
- "Nothing has to be true, but everything has to sound like it was."
- "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."
His best-known maxim, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent", became one of Isaac Asimov's favorite sayings.
Read more about this topic: Salvor Hardin
Famous quotes containing the word epigrams:
“Galway is a blackguard place,
To Cork I give my curse,
Tralee is bad enough,
But Limerick is worse.
Which is worst I cannot tell,
They’re everyone so filthy,
But of the towns which I have seen
Worst luck to Clonakilty.”
—Anonymous. “Clonakilty,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)
“Wha lies here?
I, Johnny Doo.
Hoo, Johnny, is that you?
Ay, man, but a’m dead noo.”
—Anonymous. “Johnny Doo,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)
“I change, and so do women too;
But I reflect—which women seldom do.
Tobacco is a filthy weed,
That from the devil doth proceed;
That drains your purse, that burns your clothes,
That makes a chimney of your nose.”
—Anonymous. “Written on a Looking Glass,” from Geoffrey Grigson’s Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs, Faber & Faber (1977)