Top 140 Robert E. Howard Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood.”

— Robert E. Howard

2. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

— Robert E. Howard

3. “What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs – I was a man before I was a king.”

— Robert E. Howard

4. “All fled – all done, so lift me on the pyre – The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.”

— Robert E. Howard

5. “I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

— Robert E. Howard

6. “For man’s only weapon is courage that flinches not from the gates of Hell itself, and against such not even the legions of Hell can stand.”

— Robert E. Howard

7. “Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph.”

— Robert E. Howard

8. “I’m not going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn’t step out of my path to let one go by.”

— Robert E. Howard

9. “When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die.”

— Robert E. Howard

10. “The more I see of what you call civilization, the more highly I think of what you call savagery!”

— Robert E. Howard

11. “Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.”

— Robert E. Howard

12. “It is only the promise of death that makes life worth living.”

— Robert E. Howard

13. “I have accomplished little enough, but such as it is, it is the result of my own efforts.”

— Robert E. Howard

14. “While we may open the books of the past, we may but grant flying glances of the future, through the mist that veils it.”

— Robert E. Howard

15. “What is death but a traversing of eternities and a crossing of cosmic oceans?”

— Robert E. Howard

16. “Youngsters of this generation seem not quite so hazardous except in the way of mechanical speed, bad liquor and venereal diseases.”

— Robert E. Howard

17. “Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.”

— Robert E. Howard

18. “When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back. – The Road of Kings.”

— Robert E. Howard

19. “The sea-road is good for wanderers and landless men. There is quenching of thirst on the grey paths of the winds, and the flying clouds to still the sting of lost dreams.”

— Robert E. Howard

20. “Man is better without knowledge of things to come, for what is to be will be, and man can neither avert nor hasten. It is better to go in the dark when the road must pass a lion and there is no other road.”

— Robert E. Howard

21. “Time and times are but cogwheels, unmatched, grinding on oblivious to one another. Occasionally – oh, very rarely! – the cogs fit; the pieces of the plot snap together momentarily and give men faint glimpses beyond the veil of this everyday blindness we call reality.”

— Robert E. Howard

22. “In the old free days all I wanted was a sharp sword and a straight path to my enemies. Now no paths are straight and my sword is useless.”

— Robert E. Howard

23. “My characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.”

— Robert E. Howard

24. “Someday, when all your civilization and science are likewise swept away, your kind will pray for a man with a sword.”

— Robert E. Howard

25. “How can I wear the harness of toil And sweat at the daily round, While in my soul forever The drums of Pictdom sound?”

— Robert E. Howard

26. “Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future.”

— Robert E. Howard

27. “I had neither expert aid nor advice. I studied no courses in writing; until a year or so ago, I never read a book by anybody advising writers how to write.”

— Robert E. Howard

28. “Man can be that which he wishes to be; form and substance, they are but shadows. The mind, the ego, the essence of the god-dream – that is real, that is immortal.”

— Robert E. Howard

29. “Their chief is Crom. He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”

— Robert E. Howard

30. “But not all men seek rest and peace; some are born with the spirit of the storm in their blood, restless harbingers of violence and bloodshed, knowing no other path...”

— Robert E. Howard

31. “The only safe enemy was a headless enemy.”

— Robert E. Howard

32. “I am a landless man... I come out of the sunset and into the sunrise I go, wherever the Lord doth guide my feet.”

— Robert E. Howard

33. “It seems to me that many writers, by virtue of environments of culture, art and education, slip into writing because of their environments.”

— Robert E. Howard

34. “Man is still an ape in that he forgets what is not ever before his eyes.”

— Robert E. Howard

35. “Nay, alone I am a weak creature, having no strength or might in me; yet in times past hath God made me a great vessel of wrath and a sword of deliverance. And I trust, shall do so again.”

— Robert E. Howard

36. “Some mechanism in my sub-consciousness took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers, and honest workmen I had come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.”

— Robert E. Howard

37. “He was no defensive fighter; even in the teeth of overwhelming odds he always carried the war to the enemy.”

— Robert E. Howard

38. “I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don’t believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed.”

— Robert E. Howard

39. “Well, I like a good hater. But that can wait.”

— Robert E. Howard

40. “Kothian culture and religion had suffered from a subtle admix ture of Shemite and Stygian strains.”

— Robert E. Howard

41. “Conan, grim, blood-stained, naked but for a loin-cloth, shackles on his mighty limbs, his blue eyes blazing beneath the tangled black mane which fell over his low broad forehead.”

— Robert E. Howard

42. “Life is but a web spun of ghosts and dreams and illusions.”

— Robert E. Howard

43. “Aye, you white dog, you are like all your race; but to a black man gold can never pay for blood.”

— Robert E. Howard

44. “What shall a man say when a friend has vanished behind the doors of Death? A mere tangle of barren words, only words.”

— Robert E. Howard

45. “I have no fear of the Hereafter. An orthodox hell could hardly be more torture than my life has been.”

— Robert E. Howard

46. “Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,” the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. “Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”

— Robert E. Howard

47. “Gleaming shell of an outworn lie; fable of Right divine – You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine. The throne that I won by blood and sweat, by Crom, I will not sell For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell!”

— Robert E. Howard

48. “Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity.”

— Robert E. Howard

49. “Men are but men, and the greatest men are they who soonest learn the simpler things.”

— Robert E. Howard

50. “My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.”

— Robert E. Howard