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L. Sprague de Camp
102 quotes
“The trouble with Rhodes is, it’s got too many orators and not enough engineers.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Knossians did not like to give up piracy themselves; in fact, many of their young men went elsewhere to enlist in piratical crews. However, they loved an excuse to meddle in the other cities’ affairs; for, next to robbery on the high seas, cutting their neighbors’ throats is the greatest joy of the Cretans.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whereas you believe in no gods but Iao, he carries this skepticism to its logical conclusion and believes in no gods at all. The difference seems slight to me.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Berosos sighed. “Ah me! Once we, too, were a race of warriors and conquerors.” “Be thankful you are no longer,” said Dikaiarchos. “These kings reap a bit of glory, but what do they accomplish besides burning cities, killing and enslaving multitudes, and destroying the accumulated wealth and wisdom of the ages to aggrandize their own mediocre selves? He who ascertains a new law of nature or invents a new device is greater than all your conquerors, and in the long run has more influence.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must be stupid,” I said. “I don’t doubt that his talk is full of profound hidden truths, but I find it terribly hard to understand.” Dikaiarchos laughed. “I’ll tell you a secret, Chares. I cannot understand it, either.” “You, sir?” “Yes. It may be that we are both stupid, or it may be that there is nothing to understand. It is a good practical rule that, if a man cannot explain himself in terms that any reasonably intelligent listener can comprehend, he doesn’t know what he is talking about himself.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cannot expect men to be rational about national enmities,” said Dikaiarchos. “As everyone knows, people like to have friends, but they also like to have enemies. A hereditary foe is a useful thing to have. It gives you somebody to feel superior to; it provides a handy target for all the furies and hatreds which you have boiling around inside you but which you dare not direct at those nearer you.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Folly is mortals’ self-selected misfortune.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s more magic in a well-aimed three-talent ball than in all the wizards of Egypt.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I soon found, however, that most of these parties bored me to tears. These magnates are not really such villains as the poor are wont to think them; their worst fault is dullness. They talk about their games and sports, their children and relatives, their purchases and sales, their aches and pains, and they talk about them over and over.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All we can say for sure is that monotheism proved as deadly a foe to learning as war and barbarism. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Folly is mortals’ self-chosen misfortune.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The moving shadow saith: “Swift Time doth run, And soon he’ll hale thee where there is no sun.” Well then, am I Time’s slave? I’ll mock the fiend, And gaily revel till my course be done!”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, cut your arm a little and swear by all your gods that you will adhere faithfully to me and be my friend, helper, and defender, sharing in need and standing fast in danger, until our quest be done or until death part us!” “If you like; though it’s the man who makes us believe the oath, not the oath the man.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some give their dead to earth, and some to fire, And some to beasts that roam the deserts dire; But since the dead do not return to rail, For aught I care, my guts may string a lyre!”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How goes the City of the Persians?” “The same as ever: plots and intrigues in the palace; Persian arrogance in the streets; peasant ignorance in the countryside.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A king’s wrath is as lasting as the hills, but his favor is as dew upon the grass.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My master Herakleitos used to say: Most men might as well be blind and deaf, for all that they comprehend what lies about them. If you would gain wisdom, he said, get about, see things for yourself, and subject the impressions thus gained to the divine power of reason.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Although laid out in more orderly fashion than any Greek city, Babylon had no true civic life and so was not, in the strict Greek sense of the word, a city at all. Here were hundreds of thousands of human beings, whose only concern with the government of their city was to avoid the police and cheat the tax gatherers. It reminded Myron of the swarming life sometimes found under a flat stone.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bessas scowled. “I trust, sir banker, that you seek not to take advantage of our simplicity to squeeze unwonted wealth from us. You money-grubbers would pick a farthing from a dunghill with your teeth.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Three things should not be counted upon: the level of a river, the tameness of a lion, and the promise of a king.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While a hundred wives and concubines may satisfy the vanity of a king, you would search the wide world over ere you found a king who could satisfy a hundred wives and concubines.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only sure defense against reproach, sir, is obscurity.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why told you not the entire tale?” “It is foolish to entangle oneself, any more deeply than can be helped, in the struggles of the great. The man who is down today may be up tomorrow, and rancor outlasts gratitude as stone outlasts wood.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the early years of his reign, everyone praised you-know-who to the skies. And indeed he did well at the outset. But I suppose the responsibilities and the temptations of kingship, acting together, in time break down the strongest character.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That which seems but meet and proper to us may appear odd to our friends, eccentric to strangers, and barbarous to foreigners.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Self-interest, acting in divergent directions, can in time make the bitterest foes of the firmest friends and the closest kinsmen.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You make me feel very ignorant, my Greek friend.” “I am sorry—” The First Prophet cackled. “Tsk, tsk; apologize not. I, like other men, own up to minor failings in hope of convincing others that I have no major ones.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Demon land has no fury like that of a priest who is asked to pay taxes as ordinary folk must.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men make promises according to their hopes and keep them according to their fears.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a man tell you that the streets of India are paved with pearls, cast the lie back in his teeth. Nor do pigs run about the streets ready roasted. To be sure, the kings and priests are rich, but that is the case in other lands, and the vulgus has as much ado to keep ahead of hunger as elsewhere.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be kind to the tiger is to be cruel to the lamb.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A few years past I should have happily joined my sand thieves in their forays. But now I have come to see that true wealth is not the loot of a raid, nor even the trove of a treasure like that of Takarta—from which the king’s tax gatherers will speedily separate you if they catch you. It is, rather, a network of established trade routes and connections and satisfied customers, which if carefully fostered will yield a profit for aye.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But your loss of honor—” “Honor is a subjective, intangible loss. Therefore our laws take no cognizance of it.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then who were the Ancient Ones?” Halran shrugged. “There are as many interpretations of those myths as there are mythographers.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You Afkans seem like a grimly puritanical lot,” said Halran, “if you will excuse my saying so.” Ndovu beamed. “No apologies needed. What you say is high praise here.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a common belief that all paleskins are superhumanly lusty and incorrigibly lecherous.” “Now it is you who flatter us,” said Halran.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the gods made man, which I doubt, they should have made him so he sometimes enjoyed what he has instead of forever yearning for what he has not.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is nothing so dangerous as an ignorant and frightened man.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All supernaturalism is simply a scheme to enable a class of magicians called priests to live without working.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are a law abiding folk, sir. We do not permit private persons to indulge their feuds on their own, and we have some most ingenious penalties for homicide.” “Mean ye,” said Jillo, “that amongst you Pathenians, a gentleman may not avenge an insult by the gage of battle?” “Of course not! We are not bloodthirsty barbarians.” “Ye mean there are no true gentlemen amongst you,” sniffed Jillo.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ah! Here we be! ‘Human beings most readily love others of their species who, alpha, do services for them; beta, flatter them; gamma, refrain from reproaching them for errors; and delta, cultivate good nature and ease of manner.’”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A grudge makes a starveling diet.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gontran was a rancorous, vengeful man, who never forgave what he deemed a slight or let bygones be bygones. Hatred and grudges so filled his mind as to render him impervious to reason.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let me tell you a little secret. A man’s ability as a swordsman of the other kind, to borrow your words, hinges much upon his health of body and peace of mind. If you’d fain cause his—ah—resolution to droop, you have but oft to berate him in harsh and wounding terms. If you’re fain to have him serve you with vigor, flatter and praise him; make him think himself worthier than in his heart he knows himself to be.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have deeply studied the female mind. Somewhat to my surprise, I found it, not the same as the male, but on balance quite as able.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certes, if we hanged everyone with a murderer in’s pedigree, not enough would survive to bury the bodies!”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Titled wenches make chancy wives, being full of hoity-toity snobbery. They fancy themselves beings of a superior species by virtue of blue blood, when ’tis well known that most noble houses were founded by successful banditti who frightened some weakling ruler into granting titles.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For aught I know, he may have told that silly tale so oft that he’s come to believe it himself.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have met Master Parthenius,” growled Thorolf. “He is the sort to whom, if he were drowning, I should be happy to throw an anvil.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some are true gentlemen everywhere; the problem is to pick them out of the mass.”
L. Sprague de Camp (1907–2000) said by 2000 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source