John W. Campbell quotes

John W. Campbell was an American science fiction writer and influential editor, regarded as a major figure in the genre's development. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction, he shaped the Golden Age of science fiction by nurturing legendary authors and innovative ideas. He inspired and guided the careers of many important writers, leaving a lasting impact on science fiction literature. Here are 136 of his quotes:

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

John W. Campbell

The man who prefers his country before every other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the State. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

John W. Campbell

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

John W. Campbell

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

John W. Campbell

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, 'Can't you remember anything I told you?

John W. Campbell

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

John W. Campbell

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security for the minorities.

John W. Campbell

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the tablets of eternity.

John W. Campbell

There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.

John W. Campbell

Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

John W. Campbell

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

John W. Campbell

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

John W. Campbell

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

John W. Campbell

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

John W. Campbell

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

John W. Campbell

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

John W. Campbell

Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience - a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.

John W. Campbell

The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions; for their virtue depends on the ideas that produce and on the spirit that preserves them, and the form may remain unaltered when the substance has passed away.

John W. Campbell

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

John W. Campbell

A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.

John W. Campbell

When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

John W. Campbell

I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.

John W. Campbell