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A civilization has the ethics it can afford

Larry Niven

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Larry Niven
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: April 30
Author
Mathematician
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
LA
California
Laurence van Cott Niven
Ethics
Civilization
Afford

More quotes by Larry Niven

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The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.
Larry Niven
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I don't have a strong interest in history.
Larry Niven
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And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.
Larry Niven
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In the world of words the imagination is one of the forces of nature.
Larry Niven
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Hopeless causes are the only ones worth fighting for. The fight for the taxpayer is the most hopeless of them all.
Larry Niven
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Anything beats an expensive stack of paper.
Larry Niven
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The majority is always sane.
Larry Niven
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The Gods do not protect fools. Fools are protected by more capable fools.
Larry Niven
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If one must explain a magic trick, one should do so after the show is over.
Larry Niven
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There is no cause so good or noble that it will not attract fuggheads and the fuggheads will get all the press.
Larry Niven
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How much intelligence does it take to sneak up on a leaf?
Larry Niven
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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
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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
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We should not have assumed that a political space station could be built.
Larry Niven
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Everything starts as somebody's daydream.
Larry Niven
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My problem with new writers is that it takes me five or six years to memorise the right names.
Larry Niven
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The value of a thing is what that thing will bring. -Legal Maxim
Larry Niven
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I do suspect that privacy was a passing fad.
Larry Niven
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As for AIDS, it's a plague. We are human, we get plagues. They come along every so often, kill off two thirds of the population in the next generation it's a quarter after that it's a childhood disease.
Larry Niven
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We learn only to ask more questions.
Larry Niven