L. Sprague de Camp Quotes

If the gods made man, which I doubt, they should have made him so he sometimes enjoyed what he has instead of forever yearning for what he has not.

“It is a common belief that all paleskins are superhumanly lusty and incorrigibly lecherous.”
“Now it is you who flatter us,” said Halran.

You Afkans seem like a grimly puritanical lot," said Halran, "if you will excuse my saying so."
Ndovu beamed. "No apologies needed. What you say is high praise here.

Then who were the Ancient Ones?"
Halran shrugged. "There are as many interpretations of those myths as there are mythographers.

But your loss of honor—”
“Honor is a subjective, intangible loss. Therefore our laws take no cognizance of it.

All we can say for sure is that monotheism proved as deadly a foe to learning as war and barbarism. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

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.

There’s more magic in a well-aimed three-talent ball than in all the wizards of Egypt.

Folly is mortals’ self-selected misfortune.

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.

I must be stupid," I said. "I don't doubt that his talk is full of profound hidden truths, but I find it terribly hard to understand."
Dikaiarchos laughed. "I'll tell you a secret, Chares. I cannot understand it, either."
"You, sir?"
"Yes. It may be that we are both stupid, or it may be that there is nothing to understand. It is a good practical rule that, if a man cannot explain himself in terms that any reasonably intelligent listener can comprehend, he doesn't know what he is talking about himself.

Berosos sighed. “Ah me! Once we, too, were a race of warriors and conquerors.”
“Be thankful you are no longer,” said Dikaiarchos. “These kings reap a bit of glory, but what do they accomplish besides burning cities, killing and enslaving multitudes, and destroying the accumulated wealth and wisdom of the ages to aggrandize their own mediocre selves? He who ascertains a new law of nature or invents a new device is greater than all your conquerors, and in the long run has more influence.”

Whereas you believe in no gods but Iao, he carries this skepticism to its logical conclusion and believes in no gods at all. The difference seems slight to me.

The Knossians did not like to give up piracy themselves; in fact, many of their young men went elsewhere to enlist in piratical crews. However, they loved an excuse to meddle in the other cities’ affairs; for, next to robbery on the high seas, cutting their neighbors’ throats is the greatest joy of the Cretans.

The trouble with Rhodes is, it’s got too many orators and not enough engineers.