Jack Vance
Quotes
There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.
p. 133
“Truth” is contained in the preconceptions of him who seeks to define it. Any organization of ideas whatever presupposes a judgment on the world.
p. 112
Control is necessary and even good—so long as I do the controlling.
Ghyl laughed also. “If I'm too serious, you're too irresponsible.”
“Bah,” retorted Floriel. “Is the world responsible? Of course not! The world is random, vagrant, heedless. To be responsible is to be out of phase, to be insane!”
Ghyl pondered a moment. “This is perhaps the case, in a world left to itself. But society imposes order. Living in a society, it is not insane to be responsible.”
Happiness is fugitive; dissatisfaction and boredom are real.
“Still, I am restless; in all my life I have achieved nothing.”
“Work and fatigue are well-known cures for restlessness! And what is achievement after all? Another name for vanity!”
p. 15
Freedom, privileges, options, must constantly be exercised, even at the risk of inconvenience. Otherwise they fall into desuetude and become unfashionable, unorthodox—finally irregulationary.
Speaking our language, you will understand us—and if you can think as another man thinks, you cannot dislike him.
p. 64
“I learned a great deal,” said Beran. “And then I lost all heart for further learning.”
Palafox’s eyes glinted. “Education is not achieved through the heart—it is a systematization of the mental processes.”
“But I am something other than a mental process,” said Beran. “I am a man. I must reckon with the whole of myself.”
p. 133
“My father says I have too much curiosity for my own good.”
Captain Henshaw chuckled. “He’s wrong there; too much curiosity never hurt anyone. When a boy has too little, that’s the time to start worrying.”
p. 16
A barbarian is not aware that he is a barbarian.
p. 31
If the dictators and militarists who used to start wars had to earn by manual labor what their wars cost, there would have been very few wars.
p. 31
