Larry Niven > Quotes

“The gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.”
― Larry Niven, Ringworld

“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!”
― Larry Niven

“Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun. ”
― Larry Niven

“That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.”
― Larry Niven

“Never fire a laser at a mirror. ”
― Larry Niven

“There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child was reversed in the universe next door.”
― Larry Niven

“How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?”
― Larry Niven, The Ringworld Engineers

“1a) Never throw shit at an armed man.
1b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing shit at an armed man.”
― Larry Niven, N-Space

“A civilization has the ethics it can afford”
― Larry Niven

“Ethics change with technology.”
― Larry Niven, N-Space

“In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.”
― Larry Niven

“The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim”
― Larry Niven, Lucifer's Hammer

“my fur is matted, my eyes refuse to refocus, my sthondat-begotten room is too small, my microwave heater heats all meat to the same temperature, and it is the wrong temperature, and I cannot get it fixed.”
― Larry Niven

“The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive.”
― Larry Niven

“Never tell a computer to forget it.”
― Larry Niven, A World Out of Time

“It's very difficult for a black man to get out of South-Central Los Angeles, and get out civilized....The only men I know who have escaped, all began reading Robert Heinlein at age ten.”
― Larry Niven, Scatterbrain

“There had been a popular joke on Freedom, started by a man named Calder. Looking down from space, he had said, the dominant life forms on Earth were obviously the cereals and other grasses. They occupied all the most desirable and fertile land; and they had tamed insects and animals to care for them. In particular, they had domesticated the bipeds to nurture and cultivate them and to save and plant their seed. Now, watching the farmers, Alex could easily imagine that they were worshiping and genuflecting before their masters.”
― Larry Niven

“The majority is always sane”
― Larry Niven

“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, 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, Ringworld

“Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.”
― Larry Niven, N-Space

“Spray a book with insect spray, drop it in a bag, add some mothballs and seal it. Put it in another bag and seal it. Another. The packages piled up on the floor, each a book sealed in four plastic envelopes.”
― Larry Niven, Lucifer's Hammer

“The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum”
― Larry Niven, Ringworld

“Fear is the brother of hate.”
― Larry Niven

“One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better”
― Larry Niven