Robots ​and Empire (Robot 8.) (Foundation Universe) 7 csillagozás

“Are you pleased that you will be seeing Elijah Baley again?”
“I am not certain, Madam Gladia, how best to describe my inner state. It may be that it is analogous to what a human being would describe as being pleased.”
“But you must feel something.”
“I feel as though I can make decisions more rapidly than I can ordinarily; my responses seem to come more easily; my movements seem to require less energy. I might interpret it generally as a sensation of well-being. At least I have heard human beings use that word and feel that what it is intended to describe is something that is analogous to the sensations I now experience.”

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D.G., however, was approaching the matter obliquely — or, perhaps, not approaching it at all. He said, “It was the woman’s fault, of course.”
Oser shrugged and passed his hand over his beard, as though he were reassuring himself that he, at least, was not a woman.

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Gladia said softly, “ Do you remember the evil we did when we were strong?”
Bistervan said, “Don’t fear that we will forget. It is in our minds every day.”
“Good! Because now you know what to avoid. You have learned that when the strong oppress the weak, that is wrong. Therefore, when the table turns and when you are strong and we are weak, you will not be oppressive.”
“Ah, yes, I have heard the argument. When you were strong, you never heard of morality, but now that you are weak, you preach it earnestly.”
“In your case, though, when you were weak, you knew all about morality and were appalled by the behavior of the strong — and now that you are strong, you forget morality. Surely it is better that the immoral learn morality through adversity than that the moral forget morality in prosperity.”
“We will give what we received,” said Bistervan, holding up his clenched fist.
“You should give what you would have liked to receive,” said Gladia, holding out her arms as though embracing.

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“Friends!” This time there was a certain normality to the sound. “You are all descended from Earthpeople, every one of you. I am descended from Earthpeople. There are no human beings anywhere on all the inhabited worlds — whether Spacer worlds, Settler worlds, or Earth itself — that are not either Earthpeople by birth or Earthpeople by descent. All other differences fade to nothing in the face of that enormous fact.”
Her eyes flickered leftward to look at D. G. And she found that he was smiling very slightly and that one eyelid trembled as though it were about to wink.
She went on. “That should be our guide in every thought and act. I thank you all for thinking of me as a fellow human being and for welcoming me among you without regard to any other classification in which you might have been tempted to place me. Because of that, and in the hope that the day will soon come when sixteen billion human beings, living in love and peace, will consider themselves as just that and nothing more — or less — I think of you not merely as friends but as kinsmen and kinswomen.”

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Giskard said, “You mean Dr. Mandamus is a man of conscience?”
“Conscience?”
“It is a word human beings sometimes use. I have gathered that it is applied to a person who adheres to rulea of behaviour that force him to act in ways that oppose his immediate self-interest. If Dr. Mandamus feels that he cannot allow himself advance at the expense of those with whom he is distantly connected, I imagine him to be a man of conscience. I have thought much of such things, friend Daneel, since they seem to imply that human beings do have Laws governing their behaviour, at least in some cases.”

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