You Can't Have It Both Ways. You

There Is A Special Sadness In Achievement, In The Knowledge That A Long-desired Goal Has Been Attained At Last, And That Life Must Now Be Shaped Toward New Ends.

All Human Plans [are] Subject To Ruthless Revision By Nature, Or Fate, Or Whatever One Preferred To Call The Powers Behind The Universe.

The Numbers Of Distinct Human Societies Or Nations, When Our Race Is Twice Its Present Age, May Be Far Greater Than The Total Number Of All The Men Who Have Ever Lived Up To The Present Time.

Science Fiction Does Not Attempt To Predict. It Extrapolates. It Just Says, "what If?" Not What Will Be? Because You Can Never Predict What Will Happen, Particularly In Politics And Economics. You Can To Some Extent Predict In The Technological Sphere - Flying, Space Travel, But Even There We Missed Badly On Some Things, Like Computers. No One Imagined The Incredible Impact Of Computers, Even Though Robot Brains Of Various Kinds But The Idea That One Day Every House Would Have A Computer In Every Room And That One Day We'd Have Computers Built Into Our Clothing, Nobody Ever Thought Of That.

It Is Not Easy To See How The More Extreme Forms Of Nationalism Can Long Survive When Men Have Seen The Earth In Its True Perspective As A Single Small Globe Against The Stars.