Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Poul Anderson
186 quotes
“Keep on thinking. Keep your thinking close to the ground, where it belongs. Don’t ever trade your liberty for another man’s offer to do your thinking and make your mistakes for you.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And ninety-nine percent of the human race, no matter how smart they are, will do the convenient thing instead of the wise thing, and kid themselves into thinking they can somehow escape the consequences. We’re just built that way.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The end of the world—was the sky going to open up, would the angels pour down the vials of wrath on a shaking land, and would God appear to judge the sons of men? He listened for the noise of great galloping hoofs, but there was only the wind in the trees. That was the worst of it. The sky didn’t care. The Earth went on turning through an endlessness of dark and silence, and what happened in the thin scum seething over its crust didn’t matter.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A little careful pushing, and they’ll bury the hatchet all right—in each other.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The city was breaking state and national laws every day—it had to—and the governor was outraged. He wanted to bring the whole state back under his own authority. It wasn’t an unreasonable wish, but the times weren’t ripe; and when they eventually were, the old forms of government would be no more important than the difference between Homoousian and Homoiousian. But it was going to take a lot of argument to convince the Albany man of that.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Too far a retreat from reality is insanity.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have to have some kind of morality,” he said. “Sure. Like you have to have motives for doing anything at all. Still, I think we’re beyond that smug sort of code which proclaimed crusades and burned heretics and threw dissenters into concentration camps. We need more personal and less public honor.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hurry and hurry, autumn leaves hurrying on the rainy wind, snow hurrying out of the sky, life hurrying to death, gods hurrying to oblivion.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a space he faltered, when Goltan fell with a spear through him. “Now I am one friend poorer,” he said, “and that is a wealth not gained back.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You should pay no heed to what some yokel priest has prated of. What does he know?”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I say that a God who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think you look on death as your friend,” she murmured. “That is a strange friend for a young man to have.” “The only faithful friend in this world,” he said. “Death is always sure to be at your side.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“’Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She rarely saw priest—and knowing her heart sinned, was glad of that. Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God—and was not the earth His work, and a church only man’s?—but she could not bring herself to call on Him very often.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you think maybe I want power for myself? That’s for fools who want to command other fools.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chanthavar said that the Egyptian pyramids, part of the Sphinx, traces of buried cities, a couple of ruined dams in America and Russia, some hydrogen-bomb craters, were still around, otherwise nothing earlier than the Thirty-fifth century. Time went on, relentlessly, and one by one the proud works of man were lost.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It isn’t possible to have equality. It’s been tried again and again in history, giving everybody a vote, and it’s always failed—always, in a few generations, the worse politicians drove out the better. Because by definition, half the people always have below-average intelligence; and the average is not high.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am a peaceful man, captain. I rely more on my cerebral cortex than my guns.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For the ordinary man, instability—change—means dislocation, war, uncertainty, misery, and death.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It sounds rather silly, doesn’t it? One little man thinking he can change history all by his lonesome. A lot of trouble has been caused by that delusion.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People usually take for granted that the way things are is the way things must be.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then they died. And other men came after them. Wars flamed up and burned out; the howling peoples dwelt in smashed cities and kindled their fires with books.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her rank was higher than his, so high that no one in her family worked productively.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Winter lay among the Outer Hebrides. Day was a sullen glimmer between two darknesses, often smothered in snow. When it did not fling itself upon the rocks and burst in freezing spume, the North Atlantic rolled in heavy and gnawing. There was no real horizon; leaden waves met leaden sky and misty leaden light hid the seam.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not think the coerced mind ever really learns an art.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pioneering is an unlimited chance to become the biggest frog, provided the puddle is small enough.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hard to say whether personal immortality would be a good thing or not. Not for the masses, surely! Too many of them as it was. But a select few, like Terangi Maclaren—or was it worth the trouble? Even given boats, chess, music, the No Drama, beautiful women and beautiful spectroscopes, life could get heavy.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life was too short for anything but amusement at the human race.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do you know,” said Maclaren, “there is one sin which is punished with unfailing certainty, and must therefore be the deadliest sin in all time. Stupidity.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’ll give you one thing to mull over, though. If the body’s such a valueless piece of pork, and we’ll all meet each other in the sweet bye and bye, and so on, why’re you busting every gut you own to get back to your wife?”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Li-Tsung of Krasna would have told him to live at all costs, sacrifice all the others, to save himself for his planet and the Fellowship. But there were limits. You didn’t have to accept Dave’s Calvinism—though its unmerciful God seemed very near this dead star—to swallow the truth that some things were more important than survival. Than even the survival of a cause. Maybe I’m trying to find out what those things are, he thought confusedly.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can have more adventure in an hour’s walk through a forest than in a year on a spaceship.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’m afraid I’m not a convert or anything. I still see the same blind cosmos governed by the same blind laws. But suddenly it matters. It matters terribly, and means something. What, I haven’t figured out yet. I probably never will. But I have a reason for living, or for dying if need be. Maybe that’s the whole purpose of life: purpose itself. I can’t say. But I expect to enjoy the world a lot more.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At least we can put a little sense into life.” “I don’t know whether we do or whether we find what was always there,” he replied. “Nor do I care greatly. To me, the important thing is that the purpose—order, beauty, spirit, whatever you want to call it—does exist.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your son was in your own tradition.” “Better, I hope,” said the old man. “There would be little sense to existence, did boys have no chance to be more than their fathers.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are much too kind,” said Holger, overwhelmed. “Nay.” Alfric waved his hand. “You mortals know not how tedious undying life can become, and how gladly a challenge such as this is greeted. ’Tis I should thank you.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Holger wished he had read the old tales more closely; he had only a dim childhood recollection of them.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They were not plagued that night, which Hugi said was without doubt because something worse was being prepared. Holger was inclined to share the dwarf’s pessimism.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o’ fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But your sign says you can conjure up ever-filled purses,” Holger began. “Advertising,” Martinus admitted. “Corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You cannot imagine how wearisome existence grows, alone and immortal.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And never forget: any planet is a world, as complex and mysterious in its own right, as full of its patterns and contradictions and histories, as Earth ever was.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why do people in this age think their own impoverished lives must be the norm of the universe?”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At most, the gods gave only a little happiness; the rest was merely existence.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Destiny,” said John. “The ghastliest word a man can speak.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source