Starship Troopers Quotes

[blazer1000]

I'm finally getting around to reading Starship Troopers, after having first giving it a shot back in...jeeze...7th or 8th grade. I remember not being able to get into it because I couldn't draw parallels between what I was reading and the movie I was familiar with at the time. Obviously, I've had some time to mature since then, and can now tackle the book on its own terms.

As I've been reading, certain quotes have really stood out as hilighting good or interesting ideas, and I thought I'd share them below.

• "However, I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea -- a practice I shall always follow." (p. 26)
• This sums up my attitude on this topic rather nicely.
• "Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." (p. 26)
• I've seen this quoted many-a-time, and it's a very intriguing and compelling statement
• "Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them." (p. 91)
• I thought this was neat on a number of levels, though the most obvious is how quintessentially true it is: great ideas are frequently repackaged and restated throughout the ages, and oftentimes those who repackage them are heralded as great men (*cough*Jesus*cough*). In truth, however, it is a fundamental concept that rings true for us all, and the packaging is superfluous.
• "There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false!"..."I fancy that the poet who wrote that song meant to imply that the best things in life must be purchased other than with money -- which is true -- just as the literal meaning of his words is false. The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion...and the price demanded for the most precious of all things in life is life itself -- ultimate cost for perfect value." (p. 93-94)
• Speaks for itself.
• "That old saw about 'To understand all is to forgive all' is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand them the more you loathe them." (p. 111)
• "I do not understand objections to 'cruel and unusual' punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment -- and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survivial mechanism?" (p. 115)
• I've often wondered this myself...
• "I have never been able to see how a thirty-year-old moron can vote more wisel than a fifteen-year-old genius...but that was the age of the 'divine right of the common man.' Never mind, they paid for their folly." (p. 181)
• Mmmm, arbitrary democratic limits are fun.
• "Bear in mind that this is science, not wishful thinking; the universe is what it is, not what we want it to be." (p. 183)
• Hey, who does that sound like?
• "All wars arise from population pressure. (Yes, even the Crusades, though you have to dig into trade routes and birth rate and several other things to prove it.) Morals -- all correct moral rules -- derive from the instinct to survive; moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level--as in a father who dies to save his children. But since population pressure results from the process of surviving through others, then war, because it results from population pressure, derives from the same inherited instinct which produces all moral rules suitable for human beings." (p. 185)
• Not sure if I agree, but it's still an interesting viewpoint.
• "In a mixed ship, the last thing a trooper hears before a drop (maybe the last word he ever hears) is a woman's voice, wishing him luck. If you don't think this is important, you've probably resigned from the human race." (p. 204)
• Truer words have never been spoken.

Edit: And I've finished the book. An excellent read, and I recommend it to anyone who's willing to indulge in the philosophy of human nature and warfare. Starship Troopers is interesting, in that it's not a novel in the traditional sense, but more a philosophical discussion framed in a narrative setting. It's a clever device, and I think I rather like it. Though I can't imagine how this book could be faithfully adapted into a movie and still retain its major impact points. Ah well. The movie is fun too, but for entirely different reasons.