Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination." - Meaning and context.">
Chapter 16 (p. 308)

Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination.

— Iain Banks

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Obsession is just what those too timorous to follow an idea through to its logical conclusion call determination." in the context of "Chapter 16 (p. 308)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Iain Banks" (Quotes, Culture series, The Hydrogen Sonata (2013): All page numbers are from the September 2013 first trade paperback edition published by Orbit , first printing All spelling, italics, ellipses, and punctuation as in the book. All bold face as in the book, and represents comments by or conversations among AIs. ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Iain Banks

About Iain Banks

Iain Menzies Banks (February 16, 1954 – June 9, 2013), officially Iain Banks, was a Scottish writer. As Iain M. Banks he wrote science fiction; as Iain Banks he wrote literary fiction.