# Quote — Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

> Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I'll murmur agreement, not actually say anything, I'm not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behooves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard… But no one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.

- Author: [Terry Pratchett](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett.md)
- Book: [Guards! Guards!](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guards!_Guards!#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/each-man-thought

## More from this book

> Up in the gloom the heads of dead animals haunted the walls. The Ramkins seemed to have endangered more species than an ice age. (p. 349)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/up-in-the.md)

> "Down there," he said, "are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no." (p. 337)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/down-there-he-said.md)

> 'No one knows how to do officering, Fred. That's why they're officers. If they'd knew anything, they'd be sergeants.'

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/terry-pratchett/guards-guards/no-one-knows.md)