"Nothing in excess, including self-denial."

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More by Poul Anderson

“Life isn’t a fairy tale; the knight who kills the dragon doesn’t necessarily get the princess. So what? Who’d want to live in a cosmos less rich and various than the real one?”

“On our Earth, we’ve perforce learned all the knavery there is to know.”

“Men, whose span is cruelly short, rush nonetheless to death in their youth as to a maiden’s arms.”

“It was lonely, not even knowing yourself.”

“Heim ignored the mob scene on the 3V, rested his eyes on the cold serenity of the Milky Way and thought that this, at least, would endure.”

“What’s the point of our living all these centuries if we haven’t grown up even a little?”

Resonant Thoughts

"We are bound to further every honest and practical step which the nations of Europe may make to reduce the barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and common welfare. We rejoi…"

— Winston Churchill

Politics1940–2010

#hope

"There is usually no ressentiment just where a superficial view would look for it first: in the criminal. The criminal is essentially an active type. Instead of repressing hatred, revenge, envy, and gr…"

— Max Scheler

Philosophy1874–1928

#motivation

"What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's li…"

— William Least Heat-Moon

Literature1939

#knowledge

"If the young aspirant is not rich enough for Parliament, and is deterred by the basilisks or otherwise from entering on Law or Church, and cannot altogether reduce his human intellect to the beaverish…"

— Thomas Carlyle

Philosophy1795–1881

#books