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I have known many gods. He who denies them is blind as he who trusts them too deeply.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "Queen of the Black Coast," Weird Tales (1933)
What always was must always be.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Men are but men, and the greatest men are they who soonest learn the simpler things.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Every twinge of sensation, even of agony, was a negation of death.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "A Witch Shall Be Born," Weird Tales (1934)
What is death but a traversing of eternities and a crossing of cosmic oceans?
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
A kingdom is not lost by a single defeat.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, The Hour of the Dragon
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, "A Witch Shall Be Born," Weird Tales (1934)
A woman in such an emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "The People of the Black Circle," Weird Tales (1934)
Civilization is a network and a maze of precedences and custom.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Man is still an ape in that he forgets what is not ever before his eyes.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Not all of life's roads are set fast, for a man may do this or a man may do that and not even the gods know the mind of a man.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
The only safe enemy was a headless enemy.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "Jewels of Gwahlur," Weird Tales (1935)
I mean 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, letter to Harold Preece, Jan. 1928
Any but the most brutish of men must be touched with a certain awe or wonder at the baring of a woman's naked soul.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, The Hour of the Dragon
No man can be convinced when he will not.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
I have gone into yesterday and tomorrow and both were as real as today -- which is like the dreams of ghosts!
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
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, "The Towers of the Elephant" (1933)
Civilization is a natural and inevitable consequence -- whether good or evil I am not prepared to state.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Aug. 1930
When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in... Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come?
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, Jul. 1923
One man's bane is another's bliss.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "Rogues in the House" (1934)
I don't believe I ever saw an Oklahoman who wouldn't fight at the drop of a hat — and frequently drop the hat himself.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Jul. 13, 1932
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, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
There comes, even to kings, the time of great weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the diadem and upon the fingers of the women sparkle drearily like the ice of white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester's bell and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "Beyond the Black River" (1935)
Want will make a rogue of any man.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
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, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
I have no fear of the Hereafter. An orthodox hell could hardly be more torture than my life has been.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, Jul. 1925
It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, "The God in the Bowl" (1952)
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, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Animals are neither gods nor fiends, but men in their way without the lust and greed of man.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
My body seems a mere encumbrance to me; an imbecillic wagon, hitched to the horse of desire, which is the soul.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, Aug. 28, 1925
It is an ill thing to meet a man you thought dead in the woodland at dusk.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, The Hour of the Dragon
Time, place and space are illusions, having no existence save in the mind of man which must set limits and bounds in order to understand.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
I am unable to rouse much interest in any highly civilized race, country or epoch, including this one.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Aug. 9, 1932
Before the invader sound was born, the Universe was silent and shall be again.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
Life is but a web spun of ghosts and dreams and illusions.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, Kull: Exile of Atlantis
I have put off the past like a worn-out cloak.
ROBERT E. HOWARD, The Hour of the Dragon
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