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Larry Niven
216 quotes
“The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To witness titanic events is always dangerous, usually painful, and often fatal.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. The universe is hostile.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Seen through the glow of a building orgasm, a woman seems to blaze with angelic glory.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The majority is always sane.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell them the universe is too complicated a toy for a sensibly cautious being to play with.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We learn only to ask more questions.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Forget the infinities: Concentrate on detail.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is never no hope left. Remember.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes there’s no point in giving up.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stars are far from eternal, but for man they might as well be.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Brennan was an optimist. He didn’t expect to be caught.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m being chauvinistic, he told himself. I can’t judge an alien’s sanity by Belt standards, can I? His lip curled. Sure I can. That ship is badly designed.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Perversity of the Universe Tends Toward a Maximum.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How did you come to represent the belt?” “Aptitude tests said I had a high IQ and liked ordering people around. From there I worked my way up.” “We go by the vote.” “Popularity contests.” “It works. But it does have drawbacks. What government doesn’t?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What’s the justification for ancestor worship? You know what happens to a man without modern geriatrics: as he ages his brain cells start to die. Yet people tend to respect him, to listen to him.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And the air was full of the smell of burning bridges.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rod privately suspected the Scots studied their speech off duty so they’d be unintelligible to the rest of humanity.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Species evolve to meet the environment. An intelligent species changes the environment to suit itself. As soon as a species becomes intelligent, it should stop evolving.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps I was expecting too much.” “Perhaps. We’re all waiting as fast as we can.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s a nitwit idea.” “Yes, sir.” “Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you’ve got nothing else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He liked everything about the university except the students.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And that’s another reason I don’t want contact between your species and mine. You’re all Crazy Eddies. You think every problem has a solution.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sometimes wonder why the aristocracy isn’t extinct, the lot of you seem so stupid sometimes.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I said, it was inevitable, and I don’t let laws of nature upset me.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She waited for him to explain a universe in which there was so much injustice.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It had been a long dull evening, with only the thought of leaving the party early to look forward to.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Doctor, you keep asking me to see your point of view, which is based on ethics. You never see mine, which isn’t.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Can you take orders?” “I was in the army.” “What does that mean?” “Means yes.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You’re insane. Imagine my amazement.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He felt good. At worst he had found a brand-new way to die.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He’s a computer. Perfect memory, rigid logic, no judgment. I forgot. I talked to him like a human being, and now—”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My self-centeredness is as human as your fanaticism.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Too much imagination and I’ll scare myself to death. Too little and I’ll get myself killed.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suddenly Corbell missed Mirabelle terribly. He mourned her, not because she was dead, but because she was gone.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“War between the sexes had always seemed silly to Corbell. Too much fraternizing with the enemy, ha-ha.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Civilization must have become awfully stereotyped before its collapse.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings are fragile, watery things. Death spells are the easiest magic there is.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Priests learn to be practical, if their gods don’t.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No, no. Murder and war are not the same. The intent is different, and the intent counts for a good deal.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sweet reason and solid judgment and philosophical resignation, these were not common among sorcerers.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Must have been bad when the gods were alive, though. They might grant your prayer, they might grant your enemy’s, but they’d certainly grant their own. A god’s wishes wouldn’t have anything to do with what human beings wanted.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Griffin shook his head. How could Millie be so cheerful every morning? He ought to steal a cup of her coffee and send it to R&D to be analyzed…”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s a fine line between sensible emotional restraint, and the withdrawal symptoms of a stimulus junkie denied her fix.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Gamers are so out of touch with reality that they were never considered a serious threat.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am Yali, and I would like to welcome you to Heaven. I hope you will enjoy your stay.” He laughed heartily, as at a private joke. “Yes, I most certainly hope you do. After all, some of you may stay forever. It is a nice place, actually, one of those infinitely rare situations where one is rewarded commensurately to one’s efforts. Surely that is Heaven by any man’s definition?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It looks as if this whole place was designed by pulling random pages out of 1950’s women’s magazines.” “Frightening, isn’t it?”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have you been wondering just where we are? After all, theologians have debated for centuries over the exact location of Heaven. Some have said that Heaven can be found beyond the stars. Some say it exists in the heart of Man, and others claim that it does not exist at all, that God is dead, or at least unemployed.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a light, brief kiss, but it was less an ending than a promise, and he was happy.”
Larry Niven (born 1938) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source