Quotes from Eric Frank Russell's "Next of Kin"

I collect some quotes from the novel here. Not an exhaustive collection. I was marking only when in mood.

1. "They say that one learns from experience; if that were true the human race would now be devoid of folly."
2. On organizational ritual, like military parades: "One joins the forces to help win a war and for no other purpose."
3. "The fiery end of a spaceship is its weak spot for there can be no effective armament in an area filled with propulsors."
4. "wars do not end with victory for the side with the most brains: they are terminated by the defeat of the side with the most dopes."
5. "A prisoner's first duty is to escape. That means biding one's time with appalling patience until occurs an opportunity that may be seized and exploited to the utmost."
6. "But he had one resource and one only. That was guile. There was nothing else he could employ."
7. "Leeming decided by exercise time that it was essential to have a gadget. A crucifix or a crystal ball provides psychological advantages too good to miss. His gadget could be of any shape, size or design, made of any material so long as it was visibly and undeniably a contraption. ... it ... should convey the irresistible suggestion of a strange, unknown technology."
8. "When a plotter makes two mysterious objects to all intents and purposes the same, it is hard to resist the notion that he knows what he is doing and has a sinister purpose."
9. "Some equations can be solved only by the inclusion of an unknown quantity called X. If you haven't enough to obtain a desired result you've got to add what's needed. If you require outside help that doesn't exist you must invent it." "Whenever Man had found himself unable to master his environment with his bare hands..., the said environment had be coerced or bullied into submission by Man plus X. That had been so since the beginning of time: Man plus a tool or a weapon." "But X did not have to be anything concrete or solid, it did not have to be lethal or even visible. It could be as intangible and unprovable as the threat of hellfire or the promise of heaven. It could be a dream, an illusion, a whacking great thundering lie."
10. "Anyway, he had got the enemy bothered. He was messing them about single-handed, far behind the lines. That was something. The fact that a combatant is a prisoner doesn't mean he's out of the battle. Even behind thick walls, he can still harass the foe, absorbing his time and energy, undermining his morale, pinning down at least a few of his forces."
11. "People tend to attach specific meanings to ambiguities when circumstances arise and shape themselves to give especial meanings. People don't have to be very credulous, either. It is sufficient for them to be made expectant, with a tendency to wonder - after the event."

Related: All stories of Eric Frank Russell.