# Quote — Poul Anderson, The People of the Wind

> We, the proper civil government, approved your defense measures of the past several years, though you are aware that I myself always considered them excessive. When I think of the prosperity that tax money, those resources, could have brought, left in private hands—or the social good it could have done in the public sector— Give you military your heads, and you’d build bases in the fourth dimension to protect us against an invasion from the future.

- Author: [Poul Anderson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson.md)
- Book: [The People of the Wind](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-people-of-the-wind.md)
- Page: 49
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Poul_Anderson#The_People_of_the_Wind_(1973)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-people-of-the-wind/we-the-proper

## More from this book

> The best foundation that a decision is ever allowed is our fallible assessment of the probabilities.

p. 161 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-people-of-the-wind/the-best-foundation.md)

> Then he decided that nothing was more impractical than misplaced practicality.

p. 168 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-people-of-the-wind/then-he-decided.md)

> “Not that any simple principle exists, and not that I couldn’t be wrong. But it seems to me—well, that which we are, our society or culture or what you want to name it, has a life and a right of its own.”
>
> He drew breath. “Best beloved,” he said, “if communities didn’t resist encroachments, they’d soon be swallowed by the biggest and greediest. Wouldn’t they? In the end, dead sameness. No challenges, no inspirations from somebody else’s way. What service is it to life if we let that happen?

p. 175 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/poul-anderson/the-people-of-the-wind/not-that-any.md)