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“You used the word ‘civilization,’ which means a set of abstractions, symbols, conventions. Experience tends to be vicarious; emotions are predigested and electrical; ideas become more real than things.”

— Jack Vance The Gray Prince (1975)

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More quotes by Jack Vance

My brain, otherwise a sound instrument, has a serious defect—a hypertrophied lobe of curiosity.

The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph (1966)

Experience is the only source of wisdom: by which I mean, the competent conduct of life.

Maske: Thaery (1976)

Now, as to the persistence of superstition, only an impoverished mind considers itself the repository of absolute knowledge.

Future Tense (1964)

He used a name for himself, true, but we played at Romance, and this is a game where truth is a bagatelle.

Lyonesse Trilogy (1983)

“Everyone is the same,” he told himself. “Anxious to arrive and, when they leave, wondering why they came.”

Demon Princes (1964)

All Jack Vance quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Jack Vance (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.