Robert Sheckley: Trending quotes (page 3)

““And do not think,” Manisfree said, “that we absolve ourselves from blame in this situation. Although we teachers purport to know more than other men, we have usually chosen to remain aloof from public life. Practical, hardheaded men of the world have always frightened us; and those men, in their hardheaded way, have brought us to this.”
“Nor is aloofness our only failure,” said Hanley of Anthropology. “Let me point out that we have taught—badly! Our few promising students became teachers, thus insulating themselves as we had. The rest of our students sat through the sleep-provoking drone of our lectures, eager only to depart and take their places in a mad world. We did not touch them, Joenes, we did not move them, and we did not teach them to think.”
“In fact,” said Blake of Physics, “we did quite the contrary. We managed to equip most of our students with a definite hatred of thinking. They learned to view culture with the greatest suspicion, to ignore ethics, and to consider the sciences solely as a means of making money. This was our responsibility and our failure. The outcome of that failure is the world.””

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 9 “The Need for the Utopia” (p. 74)

Life , Men , Money , World

“One moment’s inattention, and the long expected death came at last—unexpectedly! In that agonized moment, sprawled helpless upon the uncaring ground, Polletti realized that no preparation for one’s own death is possible. Death has had too much experience in catching men off guard, in piercing their attitudes and reducing their poses.”

Robert Sheckley

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 15 (p. 126)

Death , Men

“Would you define Good for me, Citizen Abbot?”
“Certainly. Good is that force within us which inspires men to acts of conformity and subservience. The worship of Good is essentially the worship of oneself, and therefore the only true worship. The self which one worships is the ideal social being: the man content in his niche in society, yet ready to creatively advance his status. Good is gentle, since it is a true reflection of the loving and pitying universe. Good is continually changing in its aspects, although it comes to us in the… You have a strange look on your face, young man.”

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

“I’m sorry, Citizen Abbot. I believe I heard that sermon, or one very much like it.”
Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 27 (p. 115)

Love , Men , Universe , Change

“Still, no matter how commonplace, one’s death is the most interesting event of one’s life.”

Robert Sheckley book Immortality, Inc.

Source: Immortality, Inc. (1959), Chapter 1 (p. 1)

Life , Death

“Quite in vain did several lawyers point out to him that, if justice really existed, there would be no need for law and lawmakers, and thus one of mankind’s noblest conceptions would be obliterated, and an entire occupational group would be thrown out of work. For it is the essence of the law, they told him, that abuses and outrages should exist, since these discrepancies served as proof and validation of the necessity of law, and of justice itself.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 6 (pp. 28-29)

Justice , Law

“But Joenes then made a speech which was a beauty, and I cannot recall it word for word, but the idea was that laws are made by man and thus must partake of the evil nature of man, and that true morality lies in following the true dictates of the illuminated soul.
“A Commie, huh?””

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

said the lead cop.
Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 2 “Lum’s Meeting With Lety Barrera Joenes” (p. 18)

Law , Beauty , Soul , Idea

““I feel no moral compunction in the slightest at my so-called crime. If a man cannot retain control of his own body, then he deserves to lose it. I have observed, during a long and varied lifetime, that men will give their bodies to any rogue who asks, and will enslave their minds to the first voice that commands them to obey. This is why the vast majority of men cannot keep even their natural birthright of a mind and body, but choose instead to rid themselves of those embarrassing emblems of freedom.”
“That,” Detective Urdorf said, “is the classic apologia of the criminal.”
“That which you call a crime when one man does it,” Kraggash said, “you call government when many men do it. Personally, I fail to see the distinction; and failing to see it, I refuse to live by it.””

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 30 (pp. 141-142)

Men , Feeling , Nature , Freedom

“In a way it made no difference, since nothing is permanent except our illusions.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 33 (pp. 156-157)

Way

“Well, no sense crying over unspilt blood,” the Prize Clerk said. “If we took full account of our eventualities, we’d soon run out of eventualities for us to take full account of.”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 3 (p. 23)

Sense , Cry

“For love, as he knew it, was an aberration, a form of temporary insanity, a short-lived state of autosuggestion.”

Robert Sheckley

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 15 (p. 132)

Love

“Thus action serves as anodyne, whereas contemplation is revealed as the most direct form of involvement, and therefore much shunned by men.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 24 (p. 112)

Men

““It is the principle of Business, which is more fundamental than the law of gravity. Wherever you go in the galaxy, you can find a food business, a housebuilding business, a war business, a peace business, a governing business, and so forth. And, of course, a God business, which is called ‘religion,’ and which is a particularly reprehensible line of endeavor. I could talk for a year on the perverse and nasty notions that the religions sell, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. But I’ll just mention one matter, which seems to underlie everything the religions preach, and which seems to me almost exquisitely perverse.”
“What’s that?” Carmody asked.
“It’s the deep, fundamental bedrock of hypocrisy upon which religion is founded. Consider: no creature can be said to worship if it does not possess free will. Free will, however, is free. And just by virtue of being free, is intractable and incalculable, a truly Godlike gift, the faculty that makes a state of freedom possible. To exist in a state of freedom is a wild, strange thing, and was clearly intended as such. But what do the religions do with this? They say, ‘Very well, you possess free will; but now you must use your free will to enslave yourself to God and to us.’ The effrontery of it! God, who would not coerce a fly, is painted as a supreme slavemaster! In the face of this, any creature with spirit must rebel, must serve God entirely of his own will and volition, or must not serve him at all, thus remaining true to himself and to the faculties God has given him.”
“I think I see what you mean,” Carmody said.
“I’ve made it too complicated,” Maudsley said. “There’s a much simpler reason for avoiding religion.”
“What’s that?”
“Just consider its style—bombastic, hortatory, sickly-sweet, patronizing, artificial, inapropos, boring, filled with dreary images or peppy slogans—fit subject matter for senile old women and unweaned babies, but for no one else. I cannot believe that the God I met here would ever enter a church; he had too much taste and ferocity, too much anger and pride. I can’t believe it, and for me that ends the matter. Why should I go to a place that a God would not enter?””

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 13 (pp. 88-89)

Women , God , War , Peace

“We have propounded our beliefs in various ways, and according to various doctrines. Often we have aroused the passions of men to murder and war. This was perfectly proper, since it brought the problems of morality and religion to their highest and most exquisite pitch, and gave many complicated matters for us theologians to talk about.
We argued always, and we published our various dissenting opinions. But we argued like lawyers in a court, and nobody in his right mind listens to a lawyer. Those were the days of our pride, and we never noticed that men had ceased to pay attention to us.”

Robert Sheckley book Journey Beyond Tomorrow

Source: Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1962), Chapter 6 “Joenes and the Three Truck Drivers” (p. 50)

Men , War , Religion , Way

“The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 7 (p. 53)

God , Question , Business , Problem

““Time devours our feeble mortality, leaving us with but the sour residue of memory.”
Marvin nodded. “Yet this ineffable and ungraspable quantity,” he replied, “this time which no man may possess, is in truth our only possession.””

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 24 (p. 110)

Truth , Memory , Time

“For the question inevitably remains, is Polletti’s admission of fear a magnificent conquest of the unconquerable, or a mere admission of the inadmissable?”

Robert Sheckley

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 2 (p. 26)

Fear , Question

“Rome has an ambiance, puerile yet unmatchable. Rome hints at the possibility of becoming the main actor in the drama of one’s own life. (The hint is false, of course; but the stolid northern cities do not even possess the hint.)”

Robert Sheckley

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 2 (pp. 19-20)

Life , Falseness

““Do you have any papers for Will Barrent?”
“None,” the lawyer said. “His case is in different hands. I’m afraid it might not be completely processed until after the Games are over.”
“But I’ll probably be dead then,” Barrent said.
“That, I can assure you, won’t stop the papers from being properly served,” the fat lawyer said proudly. “Dead or alive, you will retain all your rights.””

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 18 (p. 77)

Game , Dead

“Corpses shouldn’t be forced to answer questions. Death was man’s ancient privilege, his immemorial pact with life, granted to the slave as well as the noble. Death was man’s solace, and his right. But perhaps they had revoked that right; and now you couldn’t evade your responsibilities simply by being dead.”

Robert Sheckley book Immortality, Inc.

Source: Immortality, Inc. (1959), Chapter 2 (p. 7)

Life , Death , Question , Dead

“Marvin did not give way to despair. He gave way instead to anger, which was a much healthier emotion, though equally unproductive.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 6 (p. 28)

Way , Despair , Anger