L. Sprague de Camp Quotes

But what argument could I offer? It was nothing but an irrational feeling—the kind of “premonition” we get from time to time but remember only on the rare occasions when it is fulfilled by the event. I had no evidence.

You cannot expect men to be rational about national enmities," said Dikaiarchos. "As everyone knows, people like to have friends, but they also like to have enemies. A hereditary foe is a useful thing to have. It gives you somebody to feel superior to; it provides a handy target for all the furies and hatreds which you have boiling around inside you but which you dare not direct at those nearer you.

As the Persians say, kindness to the lion is cruelty to the lamb.

“We are a law abiding folk, sir. We do not permit private persons to indulge their feuds on their own, and we have some most ingenious penalties for homicide.”
“Mean ye,” said Jillo, “that amongst you Pathenians, a gentleman may not avenge an insult by the gage of battle?”
“Of course not! We are not bloodthirsty barbarians.”
“Ye mean there are no true gentlemen amongst you,” sniffed Jillo.

'The first in banquets, but the last in battle,'" quoted Pyrron. "Still and all, he suffered from the king's disease."
"What is that?"
"Self-conceit, which, as the proverb says, leads to self-destruction.

It was hardly fair to his opponents, but I have never had much sympathy for the victims of gambling sharks. If they were not trying to get something for nothing, they would not expose themselves to being taken.

The jackal fell into a dye pot and thought himself a peacock.

Gontran was a rancorous, vengeful man, who never forgave what he deemed a slight or let bygones be bygones. Hatred and grudges so filled his mind as to render him impervious to reason.

That man has convinced me that he is a veritable philosopher. No ordinary man could be so awkward and absent-minded.

In all these fights and flights I have never known that mad joy of battle of which the epics speak. Before the combat I am frightened, during it I am confused, and after it I am weary and disgusted.

Folly is mortals’ self-selected misfortune.

I once read that the Devil studied Basque for seven years and only learned two words.

The wise man does not defy necessity.

Now I said: “It’s unjust, Father. A man’s fate should be determined impersonally, on the basis of his virtues and abilities alone, without regard to all these petty personal likes and dislikes.”
My father replied: “Perhaps it should be but it isn’t. If they like you, they’ll excuse your faults; if they dislike you, they’ll overlook your virtues.”
“Then they’re a lot of stupid fools!”
“Are you only just now learning that? But if they are, you won’t change them, not in one lifetime.

I soon found, however, that most of these parties bored me to tears. These magnates are not really such villains as the poor are wont to think them; their worst fault is dullness. They talk about their games and sports, their children and relatives, their purchases and sales, their aches and pains, and they talk about them over and over.