Jack Vance Quotes

You espouse a very popular doctrine, ethical pragmatism, which always turns out to be the doctrine of self-interest.

The Gnashters circulated through the room, collecting coins. Reith grudgingly paid a tax of nine sequins for himself, Traz and the Flower of Cath. None of the folk present seemed to find the exaction unreasonable. So pervasive was the lack of social discipline, Reith decided, that exploitation of advantage was taken for granted.

I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.

The travesty exists only because reliance upon abstraction has made reality incomprehensible to you.

Ildefonse said ponderously: "If your analysis is correct, we must undertake to secure the future against this pangynic nightmare."

Ignorance induces suspicion.

“It is simple dog-eat-dog,” said Waylock. It’s basic battle for survival, fiercer and more brutal than ever before in the history of man. You have blinded yourself; you subscribe to false theories; you are permeated with your obsession—not only you but all of us. If we faced the facts of existence, our palliatories would be less crowded.”

“What are the motives which prompt men to new enterprises? First, money, which in a sense comprises, includes, all of the other motives too. But for the sake of clarity, call this first, the desire for money, and end in itself. Second, there’s the will for power. Subdivide that last into, say, the crusading instinct and call it a desire for unlimited sexual opportunity. Power over women. Then third, curiosity, the desire to know. Fourth, the enterprise for its own sake, as a diversion. Like a millionaire’s race horses. Fifth, philanthropy. Any more?”
“Covers it,” said Zaer.

“It seems that you are wrong, that you are guided by faith indeed.”
The Demie fell silent. His face seemed to stiffen.
“Are these not facts?” asked Joaz. “How do you reconcile them with your faith?
The Demie said mildly, “Facts can never be reconciled with faith.”

By an axiom of cultural anthropology, the more isolated a community, the more idiosyncratic become its customs and conventions. This of course is not necessarily disadvantageous.

“Truth” is contained in the preconceptions of him who seeks to define it. Any organization of ideas whatever presupposes a judgment on the world.

“Ridiculous situation,” he told himself in half-humorous self-contempt. “Six months ago I could think of nothing but travel to strange planets; now all I want is to go home to Earth.”

I don’t care a fig whether or not you are offended.

If the study of human interactions could become a science, I suspect that an inviolate axiom might be discovered to this effect: Every social disposition creates a disparity of advantages. Further: Every innovation designed to correct the disparities, no matter how altruistic in concept, works only to create a new and different set of disparities.

Art implies discipline; the more excellent the art, the more rigorous the discipline.