Robert Silverberg: Man

Robert Silverberg is American speculative fiction writer and editor. Explore interesting quotes on man.
Robert Silverberg: 176 quotes0 likes

“I have lost my sense of a universe. They say this is the richest era of human existence; but I think a man can be richer in knowing every atom of a single golden island in a blue sea than by spending his days striding among all the worlds.”

Robert Silverberg book The Man in the Maze

Source: The Man in the Maze (1969), Chapter 1, section 2 (pp. 13-14)

“When you poison a man in order to sell him the antidote, you don’t boast about it afterward to the victim!”

Robert Silverberg

In Star Science Fiction 5, edited by Frederik Pohl, p. 53
Short fiction, Company Store (1959)

““I know it stinks. The whole universe stinks, sometimes. Haven’t you discovered that yet?”
“It doesn’t have to stink!” Rawlins said sharply, his voice rising. “Is that the lesson you’ve learned in all those years? The universe doesn’t stink. Man stinks! And he does it by voluntary choice because he’d rather stink than smell sweet! We don’t have to lie. We don’t have to cheat. We could opt for honor and decency and—” Rawlins stopped abruptly. In a different tone he said, “I sound young as hell to you, don’t I, Charles?”
“You’re entitled to make mistakes,” Boardman said. “That’s what being young is for.”
“You genuinely believe and know that there’s a cosmic malevolence in the workings of the universe?”
Boardman touched the tips of his thick, short fingers together. “I wouldn’t put it that way. There’s no personal power of darkness running things, any more than there’s a personal power of good. The universe is a big impersonal machine. As it functions it tends to put stress on some of its minor parts, and those parts wear out, and the universe doesn’t give a damn about that, because it can generate replacements. There’s nothing immoral about wearing out parts, but you have to admit that from the point of view of the part under stress it’s a stinking deal.””

Robert Silverberg book The Man in the Maze

Source: The Man in the Maze (1969), Chapter 4, section 3 (p. 72)

“The style in which it was written told me much: I found that a man who cannot phrase his thoughts cleanly on paper probably has no thoughts worth notice.”

Robert Silverberg book A Time of Changes

Source: A Time of Changes (1971), Chapter 27 (p. 89)

“No man ever looked more like a President than Harding; it was his only qualification for the job, but it was enough to get him there.”

Robert Silverberg book The Stochastic Man

Source: The Stochastic Man (1975), Chapter 12 (p. 55)

“What value is lineage to a drowning man?”

Robert Silverberg book A Time of Changes

Source: A Time of Changes (1971), Chapter 40 (p. 142)

“It is peaceful here. I am far from the fishmongers and the drainers and the wine-peddlers and all those others whose songs of commerce clang in the streets of cities. A man can think; a man can look within his soul, and find those things that have been the shaping of him, and draw them forth, and examine them, and come to know himself.”

Robert Silverberg book A Time of Changes

Source: A Time of Changes (1971), Chapter 7 (p. 21)

“Only a man who doubts his own bravery bristles when called a coward.”

Robert Silverberg book The Gate of Worlds

Source: The Gate of Worlds (1967), Chapter 7 “We Play a Little Game” (p. 122)

“A man who lies to himself is the worst liar of all.”

Robert Silverberg book The Gate of Worlds

Source: The Gate of Worlds (1967), Chapter 9 “To the Western Sea” (p. 162)