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Top 25 H. Beam Piper Quotes (2025 Update)

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around.”

1. “Take a drink because you pity yourself, and then the drink pities you and has a drink, and then two good drinks get together and that calls for drinks all around.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Gresham’s law, extended: Bad manners drive out good manners.”

2. “Gresham’s law, extended: Bad manners drive out good manners.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “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.”

3. “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

H. Beam Piper Quote: “You know, it’s quite all right to give the underdog a hand, but only one hand. Keep the other hand on your pistol – or he’ll try to eat the one you gave him!”

4. “You know, it’s quite all right to give the underdog a hand, but only one hand. Keep the other hand on your pistol – or he’ll try to eat the one you gave him!”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Sanity, it would seem, was a dangerously contagious disease.”

5. “Sanity, it would seem, was a dangerously contagious disease.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “It may just be,” he added, “that there is something fundamentally unworkable about government itself. As long as Homo sapiens terra is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until he evolves into something different in a million or so years, maybe a workable system of government is a political science impossibility, just as transmutation of elements was a physical-science impossibility as long as they tried to do it by chemical means.”

6. “It may just be,” he added, “that there is something fundamentally unworkable about government itself. As long as Homo sapiens terra is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until he evolves into something different in a million or so years, maybe a workable system of government is a political science impossibility, just as transmutation of elements was a physical-science impossibility as long as they tried to do it by chemical means.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Keep a goverment poor and weak and it’s your servant; when it is rich and powerful it becomes your master.”

7. “Keep a goverment poor and weak and it’s your servant; when it is rich and powerful it becomes your master.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.”

8. “Force, he believed, was the last resort of incompetence; he had said so frequently enough since this operation had begun. Of course, he was absolutely right, though not in the way he meant. 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

H. Beam Piper Quote: “I like it where it gets dark at night, and if you want noise, you have to make it yourself.”

9. “I like it where it gets dark at night, and if you want noise, you have to make it yourself.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer.”

10. “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

H. Beam Piper Quote: “You have ability and people who don’t never forgive you for it. Your very existence is a constant reproach to them.”

11. “You have ability and people who don’t never forgive you for it. Your very existence is a constant reproach to them.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don’t understand civilization, and wouldn’t like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing, and who don’t appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it – luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?”

12. “Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don’t understand civilization, and wouldn’t like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing, and who don’t appreciate what others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it – luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.”

13. “English is the product of a Saxon warrior trying to make a date with an Angle bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “I had a lot of other ideas, now and then, but every time I took a second look at one, it got sick and died.”

14. “I had a lot of other ideas, now and then, but every time I took a second look at one, it got sick and died.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician was not malum in se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved.”

15. “Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician was not malum in se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “To argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason is as futile as to administer medicine to the dead.”

16. “To argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason is as futile as to administer medicine to the dead.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “It takes an awful lot of people, working together at an awful lot of jobs, to keep a civilization running.”

17. “It takes an awful lot of people, working together at an awful lot of jobs, to keep a civilization running.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Everything has to be at once for six-month-old puppies, six-year-old children, and reformers of any age.”

18. “Everything has to be at once for six-month-old puppies, six-year-old children, and reformers of any age.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he’s going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. You know as well as I do that that’s undemocratic.”

19. “He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he’s going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. You know as well as I do that that’s undemocratic.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything in the Galaxy – with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers. That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and war.”

20. “Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything in the Galaxy – with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers. That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and war.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Well, if a Little Fuzzy finds a door open, I’d like to know why he shouldn’t come in and look around.”

21. “Well, if a Little Fuzzy finds a door open, I’d like to know why he shouldn’t come in and look around.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “There was another officer with him, considerably younger – Captain Foxx Travis, Major General Maith’s aide.”

22. “There was another officer with him, considerably younger – Captain Foxx Travis, Major General Maith’s aide.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?”

23. “Why not everybody make friend, have fun, make help, be good?”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “It was a bland, tranquilized, life-adjusted, group-integrated sort of face – the face turned out in thousands of copies every year by the educational production lines on Terra.”

24. “It was a bland, tranquilized, life-adjusted, group-integrated sort of face – the face turned out in thousands of copies every year by the educational production lines on Terra.”

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “On Aditya, such would be unthinkable; on Aditya, everybody respects authority. Whether it’s respectable or not.”

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

— H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper Quote: “Young Mr. Conn Maxwell, who has just returned from Terra, needs no introduction to any of you,” he began. Then, having established that, he took the next ten minutes to introduce Conn.”

26. “Young Mr. Conn Maxwell, who has just returned from Terra, needs no introduction to any of you,” he began. Then, having established that, he took the next ten minutes to introduce Conn.”

— H. Beam Piper

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