Poul Anderson: Trending quotes (page 4)

“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 book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 5 (p. 53)

Life

“There are three Powers in the world which not gods nor demons nor men can stay, against which no magic shall prevail and no might shall stand, and they are the White Christ, Time, and Love.
From the first you may await only thwarting of your desire, and you must be careful that He and His in no way enter the struggle. This you can do by remembering that Heaven leaves lesser beings their free will, and thus does not force them into its own ways; even the miracles have done no more than leave open a possibility to men.
The second, which has more names than I myself—Fate, Destiny, Law, Wyrd, the Norns, Necessity, Brahm, and others beyond counting—is not to be appealed to, for it does not hear. Nor can you hope to understand how it exists together with the freedom whereof I spoke, any more than you can understand how there are both old gods and new. But for the wreaking of the greatest spells, you must ponder on this until you know in your inmost being that truth is a thing which bears as many shapes as there are minds which strive to see it.
And the third of the Powers is a mortal thing, therefore it can harm as well as help, and this is the one you must use.”

Poul Anderson book The Broken Sword

Source: The Broken Sword (1954), Chapter 6 (pp. 26-27)

Love , Men , God , Fate

“A man isn't really alive till he has something bigger than himself and his own little happiness, for which he'd gladly die.”

Poul Anderson

"Ghetto" (1954)
Short fiction

Happiness

“You have to have some kind of morality,” he said.
“Sure. Like you have to have motives for doing anything at all. Still, I think we’re beyond that smug sort of code which proclaimed crusades and burned heretics and threw dissenters into concentration camps. We need more personal and less public honor.”

Poul Anderson book Brain Wave

Source: Brain Wave (1954), Chapter 20 (p. 152)

Motivation , Thinking , Personality

“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 book Brain Wave

Source: Brain Wave (1954), Chapter 9 (p. 76)

Law , Time

“The old man murmured: “Aye, we draw to an end. Dying hurts. Nonetheless the forefathers were wise who in their myths made Nan coequal with Lesu. A thing which endured forever would become unendurable. Death opens a way, for peoples as well as for people.””

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 124)

Death , People , Way , Hurt

“Anybody can find infinite Mandelbrot figures in his navel.”

Poul Anderson

Source: Harvest of Stars (1993), Ch. 60

“He’d seen too often how little of the universe is designed for man to neglect any safety measure.”

Poul Anderson book The Star Fox

Section 2 “Arsenal Port”, Chapter III (p. 93)
The Star Fox (1965)

Universe

“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 book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 5 (pp. 50-51)

Death , War , World , Imagination

“Over unforced love, the gods themselves had no might.”

Poul Anderson book The Broken Sword

Source: The Broken Sword (1954), Chapter 12 (p. 76)

Love , God

“I say that a God who would come between two who have been to each other what we have been, is not one I would heed.”

Poul Anderson book The Broken Sword

Source: The Broken Sword (1954), Chapter 20 (p. 141)

God

“Tis colder outside than a well-born maiden’s heart.”

Poul Anderson book The Broken Sword

Source: The Broken Sword (1954), Chapter 24 (p. 171)

Heart

“Look, these were none of them supermen. In fact, they were either weaklings who’d been assigned civilian-type jobs, or warriors as ignorant and superstitious as brutal. Aside from what specialized training fitted them for Wallis’s purposes, he’d never tried to get them properly educated. If nothing else, that might have led to questioning of his righteousness and infallibility.”

Poul Anderson book There Will Be Time

Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 15 (p. 165)

Education , Question , Training

“Say on. If you are a rogue, you are at least an interesting one.”

Poul Anderson

Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks (p. 286)
Time Patrol

“Like sensible people throughout history, the average Phoenician wanted as little to do with his government as possible.”

Poul Anderson

Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks (p. 313)
Time Patrol

People , History

“What I’m trying to make you know, not in your forebrain but in your marrow, is that reality never conforms very well to the textbooks, and sometimes it doesn’t conform at all.”

Poul Anderson

The Sorrow of Odin the Goth (p. 387)
Time Patrol

Reality

“I cannot believe you harbor any illusions about the barbarians being nature’s noblemen. I soon lost mine. They were every bit as ruthless. They were simply less efficient.”

Poul Anderson

Star of the Sea (p. 523)
Time Patrol

Nature

“What I want is to commune with the land. In company I couldn’t admit that. It’d sound too pompous, as though I were from Greenpeace or the People’s Republic of Berkeley.”

Poul Anderson

The Year of the Ransom (p. 643)
Time Patrol

People , Communication

“Life was too short for anything but amusement at the human race.”

Poul Anderson book The Enemy Stars

Source: The Enemy Stars (1959), Chapter 5 (p. 38)

Life

“Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.”

Poul Anderson book The Saturn Game

"The Saturn Game" (1981)
Short fiction