(Another in the continuing series of quotes to start the week.)
Today marks a lot of birthdays of people I might have quoted — guitarist Jimmy Page (1944), singer-songwriter Joan Baez (1941), author Stuart Woods (1938), actor Bob Denver (1935), football player Bart Starr (1934), President Richard Nixon (1913) — and particularly science fiction luminary Algis Budrys (1931). But as I thought about it I decided I’d like to quote a different science fiction luminary.
Czech author and playwright Karel Čapek was born on this date in 1890, and he is best known as the author of the 1920 play R.U.R. R.U.R. stands for “Rossum’s Universal Robots” — in Czech, “Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti” — which, in addition to marking the first use of the word “robot,” became the pathfinder for every story that postulated the eventual subjugation of the human race by our robot overlords.
Anyway, in Act Two of the play, after the head of Rossum’s and one of the robots state that they “only meant it for the best” — a familiar refrain! — two of the top robot builders combine to observe that
… mankind will remain. In twenty years’ time the world will belong to them once more; even if there’s nothing more than a few savages on a tiny island … that will be a beginning. And any beginning is better than nothing. In a thousand years they’ll have caught up with us again, and then go on further than we ever did … and fulfil the dreams we’ve only ever talked about.
Without spoiling the R.U.R. story, I find that to be a very hopeful message to hang on to for whatever difficulties we may face. “Mankind will remain…. and any beginning is better than nothing.”
(“Robots,” by Bart Heird, on Flickr, under Creative Commons.)
While we’re at it, I also think this quote from Čapek’s 1922 novel The Absolute at Large is pretty funny:
You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you’d have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.
I think almost anyone who has worked in a government office can relate to that. But never fear, “Mankind will remain…. and any beginning is better than nothing”!
Have a great week!
by 
