Fooling around Quote by H. Beam Piper

Keep a goverment poor and weak and it's your servant; when it is rich and powerful it becomes your master.

— H. Beam Piper

“What I object to is the way you're raiding the Sword-Worlds." "You're crazy!" Basil Gorram exploded. "Young man," Harkaman reproved, "the conversation was between…

— H. Beam Piper

English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to pick up Saxon barmaids and is no more legitimate than any of the other results.

— H. Beam Piper

And when someone makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means.

— H. Beam Piper

“Simon, speaking as one sovereign prince to another, you have a lot to learn. You've learned one important lesson already, that a ruler must…

— H. Beam Piper

Sanity, it would seem, was a dangerously contagious disease.

— H. Beam Piper

“On Aditya, such would be unthinkable; on Aditya, everybody respects authority. Whether it's respectable or not.”

— H. Beam Piper

Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician was not malum in se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to…

— H. Beam Piper

Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together…

— H. Beam Piper

Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.

— H. Beam Piper

“You mean, the people are armed?" Prince Bentrik was incredulous. "Great Satan, aren't yours?" Prince Trask was equally surprised. "Then your democracy's a farce,…

— H. Beam Piper

“It should belong to everybody. Let us call it the Commonwealth. That means something everybody owns in common." "Something everybody owns, nobody owns," Mykhyl…

— H. Beam Piper