Poul Anderson

Quotes

1. Before the spirit could seek into it, the mind must. She studied the tensor equations as once she studied the sutras, she meditated upon the koans of science, and at last she began to feel her oneness with all that was, and in the vision find peace.

   p. 449

2. 

   We Russians have learned to fear anarchy above all else. We would rather have tyranny than it. Hanno, you do wrong to look on people’s republics, strong governments of every kind, as always evil. Freedom is perhaps better, but chaos is worse.

   p. 396

3. 

   You shall depart freely. Caution enjoins me to have you arrested and garroted within this hour. Either you are a charlatan and deserve it or a mortal danger and require it. However, I deem you a sensible man who will withdraw to his obscurity. And I am grateful to you for a fascinating glimpse of—what is best left alone.

   p. 205

4. 

   Well, everybody got stupid now and then, especially in war.

   p. 306

5. 

   "I've heard assorted rhapsodies about humankind going to the stars, of course. Who hasn't? Each of them founders on the practical problems."

   "The fish that first ventured ashore had considerable practical problems."

6. 

   I seek occasional relief in old books. They help me tell the transient from the enduring.

   p. 291

7. 

   No amount of money would stave off a nuclear warhead.

   p. 328

8. 

   I never set myself up as a prophet. Those crazy preachers have been the death of thousands, and the end is not yet.

   p. 254

9. 

   “‘Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Yeah, trouble is, the three classes of people aren’t the same.”

   p. 336

10. 

    If you continue a liar, you are as skillful a one as I have found in a wide experience.

    p. 198

11. 

    All those agonizing philosophical-theological conundrums amount to "Ask a silly question, get a silly answer."

12. 

    What’s the point of our living all these centuries if we haven’t grown up even a little?

    p. 482