Wasp Quotes

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.

He thinks he’s heap big. To me he’s just a big heap.

What do you say to that?"
Giving a deep shrug, Taylor said, "That kind of political cynicism has been long out of date where I come from. I can't help it if mentally you're about ten millennia behind us.

On my world we’re old, incredibly old, and we’ve learned a lot from a past which is long and lurid. We’ve had empires by the dozens, though none as great as yours. They all went the same way—down the sinkhole. They all vanished for the same fundamental and inevitable reasons. Empires come and empires go, but little men go on forever.

Appearances aren’t always what they seem.

Whenever Man was unable to master his invoice with this bare hands, thought Leeming, the said environment got bullied or coerced into submission by Man plus X. That had been so from the beginning of time—Man plus a tool or a weapon.
But X did not have to be anything concrete or solid, it did not have to be lethal or even visible. It could be a dream, an idea, an illusion, a bloody big thundering lie, just anything.
There was only one true test—whether it worked.

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.”

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

Nobody knew better than the Solarians that wars are not caused , declared or willingly fought by nations, planetary peoples or shape-groups, for these consist in the main of plain, ordinary folk who crave nothing more than to be left alone. The real culprits are power-drunken cliques of near-maniacs who by dint of one means or another have coerced the rest.

Well, that is a valuable addition to the sum total of our knowledge. Our minds are now enriched by the thought that an anonymous individual may be presented with a futile object for an indefinable purpose when he reaches his unknown destination.