185 quotes
What is all your studying worth, all your learning, all your knowledge, if it doesn’t lead to wisdom? And what’s wisdom but knowing what is right, and what is the right thing to do?
Use of Weapons (1990)
“What, now?”
“Soon equates to good, later to worse, Uagen Zlepe, scholar. Therefore, immediacy.”
Look to Windward (2000)
We are largely the sum of all we’ve done, and to dispose of that knowledge would be to stop being one’s self.
The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)
“You’re a wicked man.”
“Thank you. It’s taken years of diligent practice.”
Use of Weapons (1990)
One of the wisest things anybody ever said to me was that if all you ever care about is money, money is all that will ever care for you.
Transition (2009)
Even galaxy-spanning anarchist utopias of stupefying full-spectrum civilisational power have turf wars within their unacknowledged militaries.
Matter (2008)
Any theory which causes solipsism to seem just as likely an explanation for the phenomena it seeks to describe ought to be held in the utmost suspicion.
The Algebraist (2004)
Are you really as ignorant as you appear, Trelsen, or is this some sort of bizarre act, perhaps even meant to be amusing?
Look to Windward (2000)
Ignorance can be interesting.
∞
Also fatal.
The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)
I’ve been thinking about the war a lot recently, and I think I’ve decided it’s wrong. We are defeating ourselves in waging it, will destroy ourselves by winning it.
The State of the Art (1991)
On this purely practical issue he judged massacre wasteful and even contrary as a method of control. Fear lasted a week, anger a year and resentment a lifetime, he’d held.
Matter (2008)
Oh, yeah, this Ziller guy. Some spoiled, fur-rending liberal brat who thinks it’s his God-given duty to do the whining for those who can’t be bothered whining for themselves.
Look to Windward (2000)
There is a saying that we provide the machines with an end, and they provide us with the means.
The State of the Art (1991)
“Want to bet on it?”
“Thank you, no. I believe gambling to be a pastime for the weak-minded.”
Feersum Endjinn (1994)
“That seems obsessive.”
“Meticulous care can seem so to those unwilling to recognise it for its true worth.”
The Hydrogen Sonata (2013)
“You serious?”
“I’m always serious, never more so than when I’m being flippant.”
Look to Windward (2000)
Something in your voice tells me we approach the question of remuneration.
Consider Phlebas (1987)
We only become beasts—we become worse than beasts—when we torment others.
Inversions (1998)
“I had formed the impression the Protector valued your counsel.”
“It is most valued when it most closely accords with his own view.”
Inversions (1998)
There are no gods, we are told, so I must make my own salvation.
Use of Weapons (1990)