John Brunner Quotes

He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In a compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force.

And how do men call you?” “I have many names, but one nature. You may call me Mazda, or anything you please.

Another of their damnable promotions, presumably! It was the regular Gottschalk technique: select an area where sales were below average, saturate it with rumors until someone’s temper reached the breaking point and the inevitable division occurred into blank and kneeblank, and then the following day take advantage of people’s frayed nerves to sell guns, grenades and mines.

only delusible idiots like our current chief executive can be persuaded to don the robes of high office. Nice guys don’t crave power.)

Much earlier than Richardson, before World War I, in fact, Norman Angell had shown that the idea of fighting a war for profit was obsolete. The victors would pay a heavier cost than the losers. He was right, and that First World War proved the fact. The second one hammered it home with everything up to and including nuclear weapons. In an individual one would regard it as evidence of insanity to see someone repeatedly undertaking enterprises that resulted in his losing precisely what he claimed he was trying to achieve; it is not less lunatic to do it on the international scale, but if you’ve been catching the news lately you’ll have noticed it’s being done more than ever.

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

You have many years to live—do things you will be proud to remember when you're old.

It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button.

He had decided it was better to be a volcano than a man; at least one set no store by what one’s acts destroyed.

Most rich people get rich by taking what they want without paying for it. It’s the way of the world.

They sought security by piling up more and more irrelevant weapons.

"There was exactly one power base available to sustain the old style of government," Nick grunted. "Organized crime."
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How do you get away with it? Above all, how do you persuade people to risk their lives in order to kill total strangers whom they know almost literally nothing about? Why, the answer’s simple. You lie to them!

A REMARKABLE INSTANCE ON THE PUBLIC SCALE OF THE REAL-LIFE IMPLEMENTATION OF XAVIER CONROY’S DICTUM ABOUT THE PERFECTLY DEFENDED MAN Following Paraguay’s declaration of independence from Spain Dr. Francia, the dictator known as “El Supremo,” adopted a simple foreign policy: no one was permitted to enter or leave the country and trade was absolutely forbidden.

. . . and Dr. Isaiah Williams, whose body was recovered from a ravine near San Pablo. Inquiries are being hampered by what an Army spokesman termed the obstinate attitude of the local people. “They won’t admit they know their left hands from their right,” he asserted. Here at home Senator Richard Howell (Rep., Col.) today launched a fierce attack on the quote chlorophyll addicts unquote who, he claims, are hamstringing American business, already staggering under the load of high unemployment and recession, by insisting that our manufacturers comply with regulations ignored by foreign competition. In Southern Italy rioting continues in many small towns formerly dependent on fishing. Meantime, dust storms in the Camargue . . .