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If a man tell you that the streets of India are paved with pearls, cast the lie back in his teeth. Nor do pigs run about the streets ready roasted. To be sure, the kings and priests are rich, but that is the case in other lands, and the vulgus has as much ado to keep ahead of hunger as elsewhere.

— L. Sprague de Camp The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate (1961)

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More quotes by L. Sprague de Camp

All supernaturalism is simply a scheme to enable a class of magicians called priests to live without working.

The Great Fetish (1978)

There is nothing so dangerous as an ignorant and frightened man.

The Great Fetish (1978)

Not even a god, they say, could be at once wise and in love.

An Elephant for Aristotle (1958)

One man’s wickedness becomes all men’s curse.

An Elephant for Aristotle (1958)

As all young men must, I was learning the painful lesson that there is no substitute for experience.

The Bronze God of Rhodes (1960)

All L. Sprague de Camp quotes →

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