“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Humans," said the puppeteer, "should not be allowed to run loose. You will surely harm yourselves.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Exercise is wonderful," said Louis. "I could sit and watch it all day.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“For two hundred and fifty years the kzinti had not attacked human space. They had nothing to attack with. For two hundred and fifty years men had not attacked the kzinti worlds; and no kzin could understand it. Men confused them terribly.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Long ago, Louis Wu had stood at the void edge of Mount Lookitthat. The Long Fall River, on that world, ends in the tallest waterfall in known space. Louis's eyes had followed it down as far as they could penetrate the void mist. The featureless white of the void itself had grasped at his mind, and Louis Wu, half hypnotized, had sworn to live forever. How else could he see all there was to see?
Now he reaffirmed that decision.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Louis suggested that the ship be called 'Lying Bastard'. For their own reasons, Teela and Speaker agreed. For his own reason, Nessus did not object.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“The puppeteer unrolled completely. 'Did I hear you call me cute?”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Music had played suddenly through the cabin, complex and lovely, rich in minor tones, like the sad call of a sex-maddened computer. Nessus whistled.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“On a world built to ordered specification, there was no logical reason for such a mountain to exist. Yet every world should have at least one unclimbable mountain.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Gradually he was learning the size, the scale of the Ringworld. It was unpleasant, like all learning processes. He”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Once Louis Wu had sworn to live forever.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“But you've never even been as far as the Moon.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Nessus sprawled bonelessly in his couch. He looked ridiculously, ludicrously comfortable.”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools. She'd”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Heat is produced as a waste product of civilization." "I”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Fear is the brother of hate. One”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“Remember the Finagle Laws. The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. The universe is hostile." "But”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“If you can heat some bourbon, I can drink it," said the kzin. "If you cannot heat it, I can still drink it." "Nessus?”
― Larry Niven, quote from Ringworld
“When we commit to waking up and revolting against the ignorance and oppression of classism, racism, sexism, and all forms of greed, hatred, and delusion in the world, the first step we must take in that revolt is a personal dedication to purify our actions from these things that cause harm.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries
“Barack Obama seemed to suggest he was on the side of those who favored radical overhaul, but he has governed as a man who believes in reform at the margins. This is the heart of why his presidency has been so frustrating for so many: He campaigned as an insurrectionist and has governed as an institutionalist. And how could he do anything but? He is, after all, a product of the very institutions that are now in such manifest crisis. The central tragic irony of the presidency of Barack Obama is that his election marked the crowning achievement of the post-1960s meritocracy, just at the moment that the system was imploding on itself. Like all ruling orders, the meritocracy tends to cultivate within its most privileged members an abiding devotion. Many of the figures who feature most prominently in this era’s chronicle of woe, are, like Obama himself, products of the process of elite formation we call the meritocracy, the interlocking institutions that purport to select the brightest, most industrious, and most ambitious members of the society and cultivate them into leaders:”
― Christopher L. Hayes, quote from Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy
“No point to live if not dangerously.”
― Kaitlyn Davis, quote from Ignite
“He was really quite addicted to her face, and yet for the longest time he could not remember it at all, it being so much brighter than sunlight on a pool of water that he could only recall that blinding brightness; then after awhile, since she refused to give him her photograph, he began to practice looking away for a moment when he was still with her, striving to uphold in his inner vision what he had just seen (her pale, serious, smooth and slender face, oh, her dark hair, her dark hair), so that after immense effort he began to retain something of her likeness although the likeness was necessarily softened by his fallibility into a grainy, washed-out photograph of some bygone court beauty, the hair a solid mass of black except for parallel streaks of sunlight as distinct as the tines of a comb, the hand-tinted costume sweetly faded, the eyes looking sadly, gently through him, the entire image cob-webbed by a sheet of semitranslucent Thai paper whose white fibers twisted in the lacquered space between her and him like gorgeous worms; in other words, she remained eternally elsewhere.”
― William T. Vollmann, quote from Europe Central
“Best face your fears straightaway; putting things off only makes them harder.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Flame of Sevenwaters
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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