Wasp Quotes

I insist on being considered. One dope is as good as another for making a mess of things.

The first rule of captaincy is to consider the men before considering an exterior problem. There is no real solution to any predicament unless there is also the means to apply it.

Listen to me. You were born in Masham, capital city of Diracta – the Sirian home planet. Your father was a trader there at the time. You lived on Diracta until the age of seventeen, when you returned with your parents to Terra.

Back at Terran H.Q.," said Maxwell, "one is not shot at dawn for sabotage, treachery, assassination or any equally trifling misdeed. One is blindfolded and stood against the wall for not filling out forms, or for filling out the wrong ones, or for filling out the right ones with the wrong details.

The World Council," Railton snorted. "All they're interested in is exploration, discovery and trade. All they can think of is culture and cash. They're completely devoid of any sense of peril."
"Not being military officers," Ashmore pointed out, "they can hardly be expected to exist in a state of perpetual apprehension.

Power and scapegoats go together like husband and wife.

The stuff was about twelve gauge and near enough for his purpose. It resembled deep-colored copper but was not as soft as copper nor as heavy. Hard, springy and light, like telephone wire. If there were at least a thousand yards of it below, and if he could manage to drag it up to the ship, and if the golden thing didn’t come along and ball up the works, he might be able to blow free. Then he’d get to some place civilized—if he could find it. The future was based on an appalling selection of “ifs.”

One cannot analogize the non-existent.

The curse of being an officer is that one is outranked by other officers.

I give up. I cannot argue with someone who casts aside the accepted rules of logic and invents ones of his own.

After all, somebody has to do the paperwork."
"I'd agree if the paperwork was necessary and made sense."
"If there wasn't any paperwork, we'd both be out of a job."
"You've got something there. So on this planet there are two thousands of us sitting on our fundaments busily making work for each other.

Obviously riled, he growled at Lawson, “The right to unobstructed passage covers our vessels as much as anyone else’s.”
“It covers no warship bearing instructions to intercept, question, search or detain any other spaceship it considers suspicious,” declared the other. “Violators of the law are not entitled to claim protection of the law.”
“Can you tell me how to conduct a war between systems without sending armed ships through space?” asked Markhamwit, bitterly sarcastic.
Lawson waved an indifferent hand. “We aren’t the least bit interested in that problem. It is your own worry.”
“It cannot be done,” Markhamwit shouted.
“That’s most unfortunate,” remarked Lawson, full of false sympathy. “It creates an awful state of no-war.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Is peace funny?”
“War is a serious matter,” bawled Markhamwit, striving to retain a grip on his temper. “It cannot be ended with a mere flick of the finger.”
“The fact should be borne in mind by those who so nonchalantly start them,” advised Lawson, quite unmoved by the Great Lord’s ire.
“The Nileans started it.”
“They say that you did.”
“They are incorrigible liars.”
“That’s their opinion of you, too.”
A menacing expression on his face, Markhamwit said, “Do you believe them?”
“We never believe opinions.”
“You are evading my question. Somebody has to be a liar. Who do you think it is?”
“We haven’t looked into the root-causes of your dispute. It is not our woe. So without any data to go upon we can only hazard a guess.”
“Go ahead and do some hazarding then,” Markhamwit invited. He licked expectant lips.
“Probably both sides have little regard for the truth,” opined Lawson, undeterred by the other’s attitude. “It is the usual setup. When war breaks out the unmitigated liar comes into his own. His heyday lasts for the duration. After that, the victorious liars hang the vanquished ones.”

Time—the older you get the faster it goes.

Reasonableness is strength. Irrationality is weakness.

It pays to stop and think whenever you’ve got time to stop and think.