Philip José Farmer Quotes

50 Sourced Quotes

I do believe that man is a rope between animal and superman. But the superman I'm thinking of isn't Nietzsche's. The real superhuman, man or woman, is the person who's rid himself of all prejudices, neuroses, and psychoses, who realizes his full potential as a human being, who acts naturally on the basis of gentleness, compassion, and love, who thinks for himself and refuses to follow the herd. That's the genuine dyed-in-the-wool superman.

Philip José Farmer
As science pushes forward, ignorance and superstition gallop around the flanks and bite science in the rear with big dark teeth.

Philip José Farmer
This story is about love, which means that it is also about hate.

Philip José Farmer
Burton did not believe in miracles. Nothing happened that could not be explained by physical principles — if you knew all the facts.

Philip José Farmer
Now we have lit a candle to the power
Of atoms; now we know we're heirs of light
Itself...

Philip José Farmer
Miles above the Earth we know,
Fancy's rocket roars. Below,
Here and Now are needles which
Sew a pattern black as pitch,
Waiting for the rocket's light.

Philip José Farmer
By this he meant that all events, therefore, all men, are interconnected in an unbreakable web. What man does, no matter how seemingly insignificant, vibrates through the strands and affects every man.

Philip José Farmer
It was like no hell or heaven of which he had ever heard or read, and he had thought that he was acquainted with every theory of the afterlife.
He had died. Now he was alive. He had scoffed all his life at a life-after-death. For once, he could not deny that he had been wrong. But there was no one present to say, "I told you so, you damned infidel!"
Of all the millions, he alone was awake.

Philip José Farmer
Strong blasphemers thrive only when strong believers thrive.

Philip José Farmer
It was a shameful thing that she had nothing of which to be ashamed.

Philip José Farmer
By now you must have accepted the fact that your religion, in fact, none of the Earthly religions, truly knew what the afterlife would be. All made guesses, and then established these as articles of faith. Though, in a sense, some were near the mark, if you accept their revelations as symbolic.

Philip José Farmer
God, Whose hand holds stars, as we lump earth
In our fingers, give us power, give us light
To hold all love within our breast's small space.

Philip José Farmer
The way is open, comrades, free as Space
Alone is free. The only gold is love,
A coin that we have minted from the light
Of others who have cared for us on Earth
And who have deposited in us the power
That nerves our nerves to seize the burning stars.

Philip José Farmer
I did it! she said. I... I! I wanted to! Oh, what a vile low whore I am!
I don't remember offering you any money.

Philip José Farmer
Suddenly he was weeping. The tears were for the good things that had been or might have been, for the bad things that had been but should not have been.

Philip José Farmer
"Call me Meier," Goring said, but he did not pause to explain the joke.

Philip José Farmer
Everybody should fear only one person, and that person should be himself.

Philip José Farmer
According to Burton, the Ethical who talked to him did not agree with his fellows. Apparently, there was dissension even among those beings who we could account as gods. Dispute or discord in Olympus, if I may draw such a parallel. Though I do not think that the so-called Ethicals are gods, angels, or demons. They are human beings like us but advanced to a higher ethical plane. What their disagreement is, I frankly do not know. Perhaps it is about the means used to achieve a goal.

Philip José Farmer
Burton, though an infidel, made it his business to investigate thoroughly every religion. Know a man's faith, and you knew at least half the man. Know his wife, and you knew the other half.

Philip José Farmer
Drowned idols swirl like seeds in chaos' wine.
Look, Job! Caught Beauty, held to light, now apes
A good, now evil, thing — the shifting sign
And spectrum of archaic, psychic shapes.

Philip José Farmer
Confucius once said that a bear could not fart at the North Pole without causing a big wind in Chicago.

Philip José Farmer
There are Universes begging for Gods, yet he hangs around this one looking for work.

Philip José Farmer
Some of you have asked why we should set out for a goal that lies we know not how far away or that might not even exist. I will tell you that we are setting sail because the Unknown exists and we would make it the Known. That's all!

Philip José Farmer
Burton sighed, laughed loudly, and said, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." Another fairy tale to give men hope. The old religions have been discredited although some refuse to face even that fact so new ones must be invented.

Philip José Farmer
Human beings are part of nature. Anything they do is natural. It's impossible for anything in nature to do anything unnatural.

Philip José Farmer
Beauty in this Iron Age must turn
From fluid living rainbow shapes to torn
And sootened fragments, ashes in an urn
On whose gray surface runes are traced by a Norn
Who hopes to wake the Future to arise
In Phoenix-fashion, and to shine with rays
To blast the sight of modern men whose dyes
Of selfishness and lust have stained our days...

Philip José Farmer
Though Melville omitted it, Captain Ahab said, "In one sense, Aleister Crowley is lower than whale shit. In another, he's as high as God's hat. The true shaman knows that God's hat is made out of dried whale shit."

Philip José Farmer
The truth is that Trout, like Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury and many others, writes parables. These are set in frames which have become called, for no good reason, science fiction. A better generic term would be 'future fairy tales'. And even this is objectionable, since many science fiction stories take place in the present or the past, far and near.

Philip José Farmer
All the human beings I met were either sure that there would be no afterlife or else that they would get preferential treatment in the hereafter.

Philip José Farmer
Can imagination act
Perpendicular to fact?
Can it be a kite that flies
Till the Earth, umbrella-wise,
Folds and drops away from sight?

Philip José Farmer