219 quotes
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.
The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
Let us say that those who do insist on a hearing will be silenced soon enough. There is a monotonous pattern to the rise of tyrants which, I suppose, is reflected in the general pattern of human folly. Depressing though it is, we must accept the fact.
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
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.
The City in the Autumn Stars (1986)
They’re Mabden, of course. They are afraid of the city. Afraid of almost everything. And being permitted no weapons with which they can attack what they fear, they are reduced to what you see. It seems the Mabden can only kill or run away. Their brains are of no use to them.
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
This is an Age of Gods, I am afraid, Master Corum. There are many, big and small, and they crowd the universe. Once it was not so. Sometimes, I suspect, the universe manages with none at all!
The Knight of the Swords (1971)
“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.”
The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981)
Some try to understand the world, while others seek to impose their understanding on it. Unfortunately, Mr. Smiles, these latter folk are those least equipped to perform the operation. Like Frankenstein, my dear Mr. Smiles, they produce a monster.
The Condition of Muzak (1977)
In other words, the listener’s own picture was painted in the shining coulours St Odhran provided. By seeing what they wished, they also saw what he wished them to see. “They are the Orchestra,” he had told me earlier, “and I am merely the Conductor.”
The City in the Autumn Stars (1986)
I had learned, after all, to trust neither religion nor politics and to put my faith in the realities of metal, wood and steam, in practical engineering, whose rules could neither be changed nor made the subject of morality, so why should I show reverence for mere antiquity?
The City in the Autumn Stars (1986)
Tyrants hate original thinking.
The Warlord of the Air (1971)
“Your yearning, Pepin Hunchback, is not for the past as it was,” she was saying softly. “It is for a world that never existed—a Paradise, a Golden Age. Men have always spoken of such a time in history—but such an idyllic world is a yearning for childhood, not the past, for lost innocence. It is childhood we wish to return to.”
The Time Dweller (1969)
I felt sorry for him at that moment. He only wanted what every man wanted—freedom from fear, a chance to raise children with a reasonable certainty that they would be allowed to do the same, a chance to look forward to the future without the knowledge that any plans made might be wrecked forever by some sudden act of violence.
The Eternal Champion (1970)
I looked down at her shriveled corpse. It lay across that of her brother. One had represented the evil of the world, the other the good. Yet both had been defeated by pride, by ambition, by a promise of immortality.
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)
“It’s like prostitution.”
“It’s a lot like prostitution, isn’t it?”
“You see nothing wrong…?”
“The customer’s always right.”
“And you have no,” she shuddered, “ethics?”
“I give the public what it wants, if that’s what you mean.”
A Cure for Cancer (1971)
“Is that what you are? An android?”
“You could find out if you made love to me.”
Faustaff smiled and shook his head. “Sweetheart, you’re just not my type.”
“I thought any young woman was your type, doctor.”
“So did I till I met you.”
The Wrecks of Time aka The Rituals of Infinity (1967)
What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit.
London Bone (1997)
“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.
The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981)
“Better the myth of happiness,” Harlequin murmured, “than the myth of despair.”
The Condition of Muzak (1977)
“It has often been noted that gods could not exist without mortals and mortals could not exist without gods.”
“Yet gods, it appears,” said Corum, “can affect our destinies.”
“And we can affect theirs, can we not?”
The Queen of the Swords (1971)
How paltry is the thing they call science. We have something far superior! We have Faith. We have a Force greater than Reason! We have a wisdom beyond mere knowledge. We have the Holy Grail itself. The Chalice of Limitless Power!
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)