Poul Anderson Quotes

75 Sourced Quotes

If anything does change man, he said, it's science and technology. Just think about the fact—while it lasts—that parents need not take for granted some of their babies will die. You get a completely different concept of what a child is.

Poul Anderson
As related, the bank was one of those eastern ones, with Roman pillars and cathedral dimness and, I suspect, a piece of Plymouth Rock in a reliquary.

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

Poul Anderson
Life isn't a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn't necessarily get the princess. So what? Who'd want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?

Poul Anderson
History does not tend to the better, Doc, it does not, it does not. We imagine so because events have produced our glorious selves. Think, however. Put aside the romantic legends and look at the facts. The average Frenchman in 1800 was no more unfree than the average Englishman. The French Empire could have brought Europe together, and could have been liberalized from within, and there might have been no World War I in which Western civilization cut its own throat. Because that's what's happened, you know. We're still busy bleeding to death, but we haven't far to go now.

Poul Anderson
Two lives met across death and centuries. To ask what it meant is meaningless. There is no destiny. But sometimes there is bravery

Poul Anderson
Don't get me wrong. These people are mine. I like and in many ways admire them. They're the salt of the earth. It's simply that I want other condiments too.

Poul Anderson
His conscience must have gotten tired of nagging him and delivered an ultimatum.

Poul Anderson
Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might.

Poul Anderson
A fanatic is a man who, when he's lost sight of his purpose, redoubles his effort.

Poul Anderson
He'd seen too often how little of the universe is designed for man to neglect any safety measure.

Poul Anderson
My knowledge of the human psyche is as yet imperfect. Certain areas won't yield to computation.

Poul Anderson
I walk beyond town, many of these nights, to stand under the high autumnal stars, look upward and wonder.

Poul Anderson
On our Earth, we've perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.

Poul Anderson
Better a life like a falling star, bright across the dark, than a deathlessness which can see naught above or beyond itself.

Poul Anderson
The end of the world—was the sky going to open up, would the angels pour down the vials of wrath on a shaking land, and would God appear to judge the sons of men? He listened for the noise of great galloping hoofs, but there was only the wind in the trees.
That was the worst of it. The sky didn't care. The Earth went on turning through an endlessness of dark and silence, and what happened in the thin scum seething over its crust didn't matter.

Poul Anderson
The city was breaking state and national laws every day—it had to—and the governor was outraged. He wanted to bring the whole state back under his own authority. It wasn't an unreasonable wish, but the times weren't ripe; and when they eventually were, the old forms of government would be no more important than the difference between Homoousian and Homoiousian. But it was going to take a lot of argument to convince the Albany man of that.

Poul Anderson
Holger wished he had read the old tales more closely; he had only a dim childhood recollection of them.

Poul Anderson
Another irritating thing about Naqsans was their habit of solemnly repeating the obvious. In that respect they were almost as bad as humans.

Poul Anderson
For a space he faltered, when Goltan fell with a spear through him. Now I am one friend poorer, he said, and that is a wealth not gained back.

Poul Anderson
You cannot imagine how wearisome existence grows, alone and immortal.

Poul Anderson
They were not plagued that night, which Hugi said was without doubt because something worse was being prepared. Holger was inclined to share the dwarf's pessimism.

Poul Anderson
Mortal combat corrupts, and war corrupts absolutely.

Poul Anderson
One man, one vote: A legal doctrine requiring that, from time to time, old gerrymanders be replaced with new ones. The object of this is the achievement of genuine democracy.

Poul Anderson
As evil waxes, the very men who stand for good will in their fear use ever worse means o' fighting, and thereby give evil a free beachhead.

Poul Anderson
We need a reserve of life, every kind of life, he explained. Today for the spirit—a glimpse of space and green. Tomorrow for survival, flat-out survival.

Poul Anderson
But your sign says you can conjure up ever-filled purses, Holger began.
Advertising, Martinus admitted. Corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude.

Poul Anderson
Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom?

Poul Anderson
Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river.

Poul Anderson
Keep on thinking. Keep your thinking close to the ground, where it belongs. Don't ever trade your liberty for another man's offer to do your thinking and make your mistakes for you.

Poul Anderson