Dickson Quotes & Sayings

The poor fool hadn't realized that if all mankind shares a folly or an illusion, and likes to share it even knowing what it is, then the illusion is much more valuable and fine a kind of thing than the ass who wants to upset it. — John Dickson Carr

For sooner or later, no matter what fantastic long-range weapons you mounted, the ground itself had to be taken - and for that there had never been anything but the man in the ranks. — Gordon R. Dickson

the faithholder is his faith. He and it make, not two, but a single thing. Since he and it are one, there's no way to take it from him. That makes him a very powerful opponent. In fact, it makes him an unconquerable opponent; since even death can't touch him in his most important part. — Gordon R. Dickson

Don't for once ever think that what you're doing is easy. If it feels that way, you're probably doing something wrong. Throwing words onto a page is easy. But writing, the real kind, is hard. It's damn hard. — Allison M. Dickson

The trick with modern warfare was not to outgun the enemy, but carry weapons he could not gimmick. — Gordon R. Dickson

The young man [Turgot] destined for an ecclesiastical career was placed within walls carefully designed to keep out all currents of new thought; his studies, his reading, his professors, his associates, all were combined to keep from him any results of observation or reflection save those prescribed: probably, of all means for stifling healthy and helpful thought, a theological seminary, as then conducted whether Catholic or Protestant, Jewish or Mohammedan, was the most perfect. — Andrew Dickson White

Fear and paranoia are similair things, he interrupted. Both of them just so happen to be in your head. — Alessia Dickson

Live today as if it was ur last and don't ever say it is impossible cos nothing great was achieved with ease — Gordon R. Dickson

Accuracy, Rule of, Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem. — Paul Dickson

If Kurt wanted us, and if he really wanted the crystals, he would have to find us. The game was on and the clock was ticking. — Alessia Dickson

Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger. — Gordon R. Dickson

Why should there be some sort of virtue always attributed to a frank admission of vice? — Gordon R. Dickson

A camel is a horse designed by a committee and a committee's a sweet running piece of machinery compared to any government. — Gordon R. Dickson

For similar folly, our own country, in the transition from the colonial period, also paid a fearful price; and from a like catastrophe the United States has been twice saved in our time by the arguments formulated by Turgot. — Andrew Dickson White

In a morally and religiously diverse culture such as ours, humility is a much-needed key to harmony. — John Dickson

What Kinds of Circumstances Called for Courage in Paton's Life? He had courage to overcome the criticism he received from respected elders for going to the New Hebrides. A Mr. Dickson exploded, "The cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!" The memory of Williams and Harris on Erromanga was only 19 years old. But to this Paton responded: Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer (56). — Anonymous

But the curator said nothing mattered so long as it looked all right to the ignorant." [Lady Brace]
"Sort of government motto. I see." [Sir Henry Merrivale] — Carter Dickson

The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. — Andrew Dickson White

When a man can't sleep, he won't let anybody else sleep either. If he doesn't go off to dreamland the moment his head hits the pillow, he gets frightfully annoyed and won't stay in bed. — Carter Dickson

More blood's been spilled by the militant adherents of prophets of change than by any other group of people down through the history of man. — Gordon R. Dickson

Foolish man, the woman spat coldly. A stronger, smarter generation is coming. They will walk the earth as the ashes of your organization rain from the skies. — Alessia Dickson

Above all things, dragons are loyal. Perhaps that is what makes us to amenable to life with sticks. Our characters are larger than their shortfalls. — H. Leighton Dickson

Persons who clamor for governmental control of American railways should visit Germany, and above all Russia, to see how such control results. In Germany its defects are evident enough; people are made to travel in carriages which our main lines would not think of using, and with a lack of conveniences which with us would provoke a revolt; but the most amazing thing about this administration in Russia is to see how, after all this vast expenditure, the whole atmosphere of the country seems to paralyze energy. — Andrew Dickson White

Both Tom and I adore detective stories. Isn't that so, Tom?" [Lady Brace]
"Right!" agreed her husband ... "But they've got to be proper detective stories. They've got to present a tricky, highly sophisticated problem, which you're given fair opportunity to solve."
"And," amplified Virginia, "no saying they're psychological studies when the author can't write for beans."
"Correct!" her husband agreed again. "Couldn't care less when you're supposed to get all excited as to whether the innocent man will be hanged or the innocent heroine will be seduced. Heroine ought to be seduced; what's she there for? The thing is the mystery. It's not worth reading if the mystery is simple or easy or no mystery at all. — Carter Dickson

The more innocuous the name of a weapon, the more hideous its impact. Some of the most horrific weapons of the Vietnam era were named 'Bambi', 'Infant', 'Daisycutter', 'Grasshopper', and 'Agent Orange'. Nor is the trend new: from the past we have 'Mustard Gas', 'Angel Chasers' (two cannonballs linked with a chain for added destruction) and 'The Peacemaker' to name but a few.) — Paul Dickson

Life turned dragons to stone. Stars to ash, gold to coal. — H. Leighton Dickson

When there are a hundred dragons in the sky, it is Hell Down and Hallow Fire. It is the winds of a hurricane and the roar of the storm. We blot out the sun, we blacken the clouds, we churn the sea like foam. It is a magnificent, terrifying sight. — H. Leighton Dickson

No experiment is ever a complete failure. It can always be used as a bad example. — Paul Dickson

That's what happens with your first love. It carves a hole in the muscle and fiber, so that you have no choice but to wear it like a birthmark. — Rebecca Tsaros Dickson

Living in filth was regarded by great numbers of holy men, who set an example to the Church and to society, as an evidence of sanctity. St. Jerome and the Breviary of the Roman Church dwell with unction on the fact that St. Hilarion lived his whole life long in utter physical uncleanliness; St. Athanasius glorifies St. Anthony because he had never washed his feet; St. Abraham's most striking evidence of holiness was that for fifty years he washed neither his hands nor his feet; St. Sylvia never washed any part of her body save her fingers; St. Euphraxia belonged to a convent in which the nuns religiously abstained from bathing. St. Mary of Egypt was emninent for filthiness; St. Simon Stylites was in this respect unspeakable - the least that can be said is, that he lived in ordure and stench intolerable to his visitors. — Andrew Dickson White

His [Turgot's] first important literary and scholastic effort was a treatise On the Existence of God. Few fragments of it remain, but we are helped to understand him when we learn that he asserted, and to the end of his life maintained, his belief in an Almighty Creator and Upholder of the Universe. It did, indeed, at a later period suit the purposes of his enemies, exasperated by his tolerant spirit and his reforming plans, to proclaim him an atheist; but that sort of charge has been the commonest of missiles against troublesome thinkers in all times. — Andrew Dickson White

The human hand is made complete by the addition of a baseball. — Paul Dickson

The 'law of wills and causes,' formulated by Comte, ... is that when men do not know the natural causes of things, they simply attribute them to wills like their own; thus they obtain a theory which provisionally takes the place of science, and this theory forms a basis for theology. — Andrew Dickson White

Abbott's Admonitions: (1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. (2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question. — Paul Dickson

rewarded with another drag on her — Diane M. Dickson

They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams
and still calls for more. — Gordon R. Dickson

while I may not be able to trace the Artist's hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. He is the one I can shout at, cry with and find comfort in. — John Dickson

Advice, First Law of: The correct advice to give is the advice that is desired. — Paul Dickson

Humility applied to convictions does not mean believing things any less; it means treating those who hold contrary beliefs with respect and friendship. — John Dickson

The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst. — Andrew Dickson White

Man has survived and prospered for more than 150,000 years on this planet without the help of use-by dates. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

With people in the world such as 'Jamie Oliver' and [TV chef] Clarissa Dickson-Wright there isn't much hope for animals. — Steven Morrissey

Atheism certainly promotes a low view of humanity- how much lower can you get than thinking yourself an accidental by-product of a series of even larger accidents! — John Dickson

I am a mathematician, sir. I never permit myself to think. — John Dickson Carr

The Adventures of Dickson McCunn, Adam Bede, Eric or Little by Little, these and many others, old and new, good bad and indifferent were grist to Duggie's mill. He found a novel by Rhoda Broughton entitled Not Wisely But Too Well and read it all through. He read an abridged version of Robinson Crusoe, and Under Two Flags and Coral Island with equal concentration. He read Little Women and Wuthering Heights. Cheyney he found difficult, for the people seemed to speak an unfamiliar language, but he struggled on manfully all the same. Needless — D.E. Stevenson

That's the point. If these Labour MP's were really working men, they'd have some sense. But most of 'em, or at least the ones I've met, seem to be half-baked intellectuals who've specialized in economics or some such dreary muck. — Carter Dickson

I'm often in a situation that I have to prepare a pudding for surprise guests, only to find that the only thing I have in my cupboard is a box of dried figs. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

All field sports people are doing is turning an inevitable necessity into a pleasure. If the animal is going to be killed anyway, why not take pleasure in it? — Clarissa Dickson Wright

You don't give up on the people you love, even when they give up on themselves. — Alessia Dickson

In general, substance-induced mania will subside within four weeks. — Ken Dickson

Trust was, after all, a freely given commodity. Once lost, it was not easily — H. Leighton Dickson

Oh you are especially priceless, he said motioning to Haven and I, widening the expanse of his grin. First you two break into my office... Haven stiffened and we briefly made eye contact. And then all four of you break into my lab. Quite a nosey lot aren't you? — Alessia Dickson

You know, I can actually understand Kurt's logic. Why save an entire race of people when all they're doing is destroying? Starting wars. Destroying the environment. Destroying each other. Destroying what makes them human. — Alessia Dickson

There was more to modern mining than logic. The best engineers had feel. It was a sensitivity born of experience, of talent, and even of something like love, with which they commanded, not only the mountains, but the machine they rode and directed. Now this too was added to the list of man's endeavors for which some special talent was needed. — Gordon R. Dickson

A businessman needs three umbrellas - one to leave at the office, one to leave at home, and one to leave on the train. — Paul Dickson

remembered the eye in the tent guilt with gold. "Just — H. Leighton Dickson

A clean tie attracts the soup of the day. — Paul Dickson

Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once — Lillian Dickson

What does it mean a 'greener life'? Well, let's be brutal. It doesn't meaning meditating in a centrally heated room on a macrame mat in front of an Amerindian dreamcatcher and a homemade candle surrounded by ugly spider plants, then rushing off in a gas-guzzling 4-wheel drive to collect the children from school and feeding them on pre-prepared supermarket meals heated in the microwave. If you have a faith, living a greener life demands a certain amount of self-sacrifice. You don't save the planet with notions and lip service. Like every adventure it requires a degree of suffering and getting your hands dirty. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

We didn't have words. We didn't have writing or maps or language, but we had music and in that music, we spoke victory and loss, sadness and rage. We sang fire and water, earth and sky. We wrote the history of the Battle of Lamos and told the story of Selisanae of the Sun and wove the tragedy of the lives and deaths of dragons in every land. It was marvellous. — H. Leighton Dickson

What we would think of as a beef animal had the double purpose of being a working or draught animal that could pull heavy loads. There is an old adage, "A year to grow, two years to plough and a year to fatten." The beef medieval people would have eaten would have been a maturer, denser meat than we are used to today. I have always longed to try it. The muscle acquired from a working ox would have broken down over the fattening year and provided wonderful fat covering and marbling. Given the amount of brewing that took place, the odds are that the animals would have been fed a little drained mash from time to time. Kobe beef, that excessively expensive Japanese beef, was originally obtained from ex-plough animals whose muscles were broken down by mash from sake production and by massage. I'd like to think our beef might have had a not dissimilar flavour. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind. — Andrew Dickson White

Political monopoly and economic monopoly are two sides of the same coin, two heads of the same monster. Despite all the claims to the contrary, the essential ideology of Neo-Conservatism is to preserve the status quo, with all of its injustices. Its public relations experts call for "freedom and democracy" without a framework of higher values. They fail to comprehend the need for a paradigm of justice and therefore are blind to what concerns most of the people in the world. This failure is the taproot of terrorism. — Robert Dickson Crane

To write good history is the noblest work of man. — John Dickson Carr

John Le Carre said that authenticity is less important than plausibility. — Gordon R. Dickson

I've tried to explain to people that I don't 'love' writing any more than I 'love' breathing. It's something I do and it's something I need. If I thought about it as a love/hate thing, I probably would have quit long ago. And then died. — Allison M. Dickson

We're painted savages, nothing more, in spite of what we like to think of as some thousands of years of civilization. Only our present paint's called clothing and our caves called buildings — Gordon R. Dickson

In the 20th century, the French managed to get a death on the myth that they produce the world's best food. The hype has been carefully orchestrated, and despite the fact that the most popular food in the last quarter has undoubtedly been Italian, the French have managed to maintain that mental grip. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

Suppose it was even as you think," he went on, even more gently. "Suppose that all you say was a fact, and that our Elders were but greedy tyrants, ourselves abandoned here by their selfish will and set to fulfill a false and prideful purpose. No." Jamethon's voice rose. "Let me attest as if it were only for myself. Suppose that you could give me proof that all our Elders lied, that our very Covenant was false. Suppose that you could prove to me" - his face lifted to mine and his voice drove at me - "that all was perversion and falsehood, and nowhere among the Chosen, not even in the house of my father, was there faith or hope! If you could prove to me that no miracle could save me, that no soul stood with me, and that opposed were all the legions of the universe, still I, I alone, Mr. Olyn, would go forward as I have been commanded, to the end of the universe, to the culmination of eternity. For without my faith I am but common earth. But with my faith, there is no power can stay me! — Gordon R. Dickson

Not that anybody cares two pins about history in these days.We've got rid of history; history is all my eye. But I've got to tell you the facts. — Carter Dickson

In an address before the "Academia," which had been organized to combat "science falsely so called," Cardinal Manning declared his abhorrence of the new view of Nature, and described it as "a brutal philosophy to wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam." ... These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fashion for several years. — Andrew Dickson White

The establishment of Christianity ... arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for over fifteen hundred years. — Andrew Dickson White

If adapted to the unique requirements of various regions and peoples of the world, such economic pluralism could have a greater global impact over the next fifty years than the collectivist economics of Marxism and neo-Marxism have had during the half century just past. — Robert Dickson Crane

The great curse of theology and ecclesiasticisim has always been their tendency to sacrifice large interests to small: Charity to Creed, Unity to Uniformity, Fact to Tradition, Ethics to Dogma. — Andrew Dickson White

Just as the line of astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed the old astronomy, in which the earth was the center, and the Almighty sitting above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies about it with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all animals to suit the needs and purposes of man. — Andrew Dickson White

I have taken all my good deeds and all my bad deeds, and cast them ... in a heap before the Lord, and fled from both, and betaken myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, and in him I have sweet peace! — David Dickson

Among many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will be eaten by cannibals!" At last I replied, "Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms." — John Gibson Paton

I have committed another crime, Hadley,' he said. 'I have guessed the truth again. — John Dickson Carr

Paperchase. And it is on a deduction drawn from — John Dickson Carr

In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. — Paul Dickson

the same with dragons. So that morning, I shook the snow from my head and gazed — H. Leighton Dickson

That sounds silly, doesn't it? Running away just because you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings? But did you ever think how much of our lives we spend,dodging and twisting and making things difficult for ourselves, to avoid hurting somebody's feelings. Even people with absolutely no claim on us? — Carter Dickson

Bankruptcy is like losing your virginity. It doesn't hurt the next time. — Clarissa Dickson Wright

I want to be with you," he says. "But I can't if you won't let me."
"Why?" I drop my bag in the driveway. "Why do you want to be with this?" I wave my arm up and down the length of my body. Immediately, I hate myself for this. The only person making this about my body is me.
"Because I like you. I think I might feel a lot more than that for you, Willowdean. How is that so hard to believe? — Julie Murphy

This whole theory [of John Law and Jean Terrasson], as dear to French financial schemers in the eighteenth century as to American " Greenbackers " in the nineteenth, had resulted, under the Orleans Regency and Louis XV, in ruin to France financially and morally, had culminated in the utter destruction of all prosperity, the rooting out of great numbers of the most important industries, and the grinding down of the working people even to starvation. — Andrew Dickson White

Wolsey and Henry VIII, it has to be said, were not exceptional in their love of the table. The English of Tudor times had a reputation throughout Europe for gluttony. Indeed, overeating was regarded as the English vice in the same way that lust was the French one and drunkenness that of the Germans (although looking at the amount of alcohol consumed in England, I expect the English probably ran a close second to the Germans). — Clarissa Dickson Wright

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.6 — John Dickson

Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well being. — Paul Dickson

Job interview question: Q: Where do you see yourself five years from now?A: Well, five years from now I see myself being able to answer this question. — Matthew Dickson

Belief is unprovable, but it is a stepping-stone to truth.
Faith is unshakable. It is neither belief nor truth but lights the way between them.
Truth is undeniable. It is both the intention and the end of belief, and the reward of faith. — Ken Dickson

I never met a gal who represented a mystery to me in quite the fetchin' way you did. It'd be dull and dreary just to find out how a crook got in and out of a locked room to steal a gold-and-jewelled cup. But it's very rummy, and fascinates the old man a bit, to wonder why a crook didn't steal a gold-and-jewelled cup he should have stolen. — Carter Dickson

When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr. — Tim Pratt

Memories, after all, were the only thing that remained of a person. — Alessia Dickson

The odds are six to five that the light in the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train. — Paul Dickson

Supernaturals is a broad term used to classify beings that include Elementals and numerous other creatures. Like what? The list is endless. Witches, Demons, Spirits, stuff like that. Wow, I commented dryly. It's like a giant Halloween party isn't it? — Alessia Dickson

For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot. — John Updike

Part of liberation is being free to do your own thing and letting everyone else be free to do theirs. — Christa Dickson

A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable. — Paul Dickson

In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and to science, and invariably; and, on the other hand, all untrammelled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed for the time to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good both of religion and of science. — Andrew Dickson White

We don't fall in love with a woman because of her good character. — John Dickson Carr