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Michael Moorcock
303 quotes
“Men may trust men, Prince Elric, but perhaps we’ll never have a truly sane world until men learn to trust mankind. That would mean the death of magic, I think.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not know. That is the only real truth, Shaarilla. I do not know.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a dilemma known to all men, perhaps,” Rackhir said. “At least to some degree.” “Aye—to wonder what purpose there is to one’s existence and what point there is to purpose, even if it should be discovered.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am so weary of gods and their struggles,” he murmured as he mounted his golden mare. Moonglum stared out into the desert. “But when will the gods themselves weary of it, I wonder?” he said. “If they did, it would be a happy day for Man. Perhaps all our struggling, our suffering, our conflicts are merely to relieve the boredom of the Lords of the Higher Worlds. Perhaps that is why when they created us they made us imperfect.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am for no master nor moral persuasion. I am for myself. What your yearning soul, madam, might mistake for loyalty to person or Purpose is merely a firm and, aye, principled determination to accept responsibility only for myself and my own actions.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Their glory in earthly power had brought them to decadent ruin, as it brought down all empires who gloried in gold or conquest or those other ambitions which can never be satisfied but must forever be fed.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Elric was recollecting what was best and noblest in his own people and in himself, and even as he celebrated this he mourned the self-obsessed creatures they had become, using their power merely to preserve their power and that, he supposed, was true decay...”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man is a relic, gentlemen, from an age most of us have only read about. He would have us judged by our wealth and our martial glory rather than our goodwill and tranquility of spirit.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are subjects forbidden by good manners, it seems. As in many societies, I suppose, where the very fundamentals of their existence are the subject of the deepest taboos. What is this terror of reality, I wonder, which plagues the human spirit?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human love,” says Fallogard Phatt, turning his eyes from his vision, “it is finally our only real weapon against entropy...”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be silent!” That is the perpetual admonition of Tyranny. Tyranny bellows ‘Be silent!’ even to the screams of its victims, the pathetic moans and groanings and supplications of its trampled millions.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One by one, with appalling deliberation, the villages of the Gypsy Nation crawl to the edge and plunge into the abyss. To stop is obscene. They do not know how to stop. They can only die. Elric, too, is screaming now, as he forces his horse forward. But he screams, he knows, at the apparent inevitability of human folly, of people who can destroy themselves to honour a principle and a habit that has long since ceased to have any practical function. They are dying because they would rather follow habit than alter their course.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Did you not tell me once that patronage of the artist was the only valuable vocation to which a prince might aspire?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You desire power only for that most selfish of all ends, and therefore you know no boundaries in the seeking and the gaining of it.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my own world, sir, sad to say, human prejudice is matched only by human folly. Not a soul claims to be prejudiced, of course, as there are few who would describe themselves as fools...” Elric, chewing on a piece of barely palatable salt beef, remarked that this seemed a quality of a good deal of society, throughout the multiverse.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As I believe I observed earlier,” said the albino prince to the still-cowed Gaynor, “the most powerful of beings are not necessarily the most intelligent, nor, indeed, sane, nor well-mannered. The more one knows of the gods, the more one learns this fundamental lesson...”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For this was the other thing that Elric knew; that to compromise with Tyranny is always to be destroyed by it. The sanest and most logical choice lay always in resistance.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must admit, sir, that I have modified the verses a little, to allow for the new things I have learned, so I am an unreliable source of truth, sir, save in its most fundamental sense. Like a majority of poets, sir.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I did not say that we would not fight,” her sister said firmly, “I said that we would not resort to the building of empires. These are two distinct things.” “I understand you, my lady,” said the albino, “and I accept the difference. I have no liking for my people’s penchant for empire-building.” “Well, my lord, there are many other ways to achieve security.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Assassins have attempted to eliminate the trader, but unfortunately, they were not lucky.” Elric laughed. “How disappointing, my friends. Still assassins are the most dispensable members of the community—are they not? And their souls probably went to placate some demon who would otherwise have plagued more honest folk.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thanks,” said Elric, “and what did you give in the first place for the power to summon such a demon?” “Why, my soul, of course. But it was an old one and not of much worth. Hell could be no worse than this existence.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why do we worship such a god when whim decides him so often?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A man who can’t forget the past is a man who cannot plan for the future.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Elric knew that in reality Chaos was the harbinger of stagnation, for though it changed constantly, it never progressed.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are the gods mad or are they so subtle we cannot fathom the workings of their minds?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Regret is useless since it can achieve nothing.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only Law could create such perfection and, Elric thought, such perfection defeated progress. That the twin forces complemented one another was now plainer than ever before, and for either to gain complete ascendancy over the other meant entropy or stagnation for the cosmos. Even though Law might dominate the Earth, Chaos must be present, and vice versa.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One can act too much in the cause of self-preservation and experience nothing fresh as a result.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Could you punish a heretic?” “Madam, I do not know what a heretic really is. The word is made much of, these days. It seems to describe anyone you wish dead.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Scholarly men were suspect in my town. Women could not admit to scholarship at all. Men are afraid of two things in this world, it seems—women and knowledge. Both threaten their power, eh?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Hell you become what you fear yourself to be. In Heaven you may become what you hope yourself to be,” said Lucifer.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I said: “Then in reality I had little choice.” “Let us say that your character has already determined your choice.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had always claimed to welcome the truth; yet now, in common with most of us, I was resentful of the truth because it called upon me to take an unwelcome course of action.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I understand you now. But surely, if Lucifer is successful, we shall all be saved.” The Wildgrave’s smile was bitter. “What logic provides you with that hope, von Bek? If God is merciful, He provides us with little evidence.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I watched him while he moved about in the nearby spinney below, bending and straightening, shaking snow from the sticks he found, and for some reason was reminded of the parable of Abraham and his son. Why should one serve a God who demanded such insane loyalty, who demanded that one deny the very humanity He was said to have created?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Again that smile of exquisite and self-congratulatory piety.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not speculate, Sedenko, on things for which no evidence exists. You will waste your time.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What more could you need?” I smiled in self-mockery. “Reassurance, I suppose.” “That must come from your own judgment, from your own testing of your conscience. It is the only kind of reassurance worth having, as I’m sure you would agree.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is a rationalizing beast, if not a rational one.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I shall know soon.” I hesitated. “I shall know if all these adventurings, all these ordeals, have been meaningless or not. Man struggles in the belief that he can, by dint of perseverance, affect his own destiny. And all those efforts, I think, lead to nothing but ruin.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When he was dead I raised myself to my feet and I looked about me. Everything was still. A loneliness had come upon my soul. There was darkness everywhere now but in the forest. And even here there were wisps of grey, as if evil crept in. I lifted my head to the sky and I shook my fist. “Oh, I reject you. I reject your Heaven and I reject your Hell. Do as you wish with me, but know that your desires are petty and your ambitions have no meaning!” I addressed no one. I addressed the universe. I addressed a void.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Can Hell and Heaven be merely the difference between ignorance and knowledge?”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Are you still afraid?” I asked her. “No,” she said, “I am thankful. The world has been threatened too long by the extraordinary, the supernatural and the monstrous. I shall be happy enough to smell the pines and hear the song of the thrush. And to be with you, Captain von Bek.” “The world is still threatened,” I said to her, “but perhaps not by Lucifer. I held her hand tightly.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I pray, in short, that God exists, that Lucifer brings about His own Redemption and that mankind therefore shall in time be free of them both forever: for until Man makes his own justice according to his own experience, he will never know what true peace can be.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But now the Mob’s passing whim had become the only law, as Robespierre himself would soon discover. I felt cruelly betrayed: by the Revolution, by men I had embraced as brothers, by Circumstance, and, as always, by God.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Once rich, moreover, I should again travel easily about Europe, for while in the public eye a poor radical is dangerous rogue, a rich radical is merely an eccentric gentleman!”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This vast pile of natural beauty, those crags and fir trees and hovering hawks, those echoing ravines and vast tumblings of snow and earth, brought me swiftly to the understanding of my own insignificance and, indeed, the insignificance of all human struggle.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had sampled several such brotherhoods, including the Rosey Cross and the Orange Lodge, during the period in which I examined the Supernatural and found it not merely uninstructive but damnably dull, its members possessing nothing in the way of individual imagination and a great need to seek confirmation in numbers for the merits of miserable little madnesses....Such people as a rule were lonely, confounded misfits, attempting to alter the surrounding evidence of Nature by inventing abstractions to explain why common facts were false and ordinary reality a poor illusion.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An unquestioned creed is a noose about the throat of Reason.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His stated principle is that all knowledge should be at the public disposal. He argues against the hoarding of scientific discoveries, believing that the miserly act of secretion is in itself bound to produce fear and unnecessary caution in the mind of the citizen. Superstitious destruction of the unfamiliar is its most common expression. Prince Badehoff-Fischer argues that in such matters a secret is parallel, if not identical, to a lie. Both occur because one body seeks power over another.”
Michael Moorcock (born 1939) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source