Proverbs, Sayings, Myths, and Axioms

Gorean Proverbs, Sayings, Myths and Axioms:

Gorean Proverbs:
"Scavengers come to feast on the bodies of wounded tarnsmen"  Tarnsman of Gor pg. 116
"The sword must drink until it's thirst is satisfied"  Guardsman of Gor pg. 17
"Beware the sleen that seems to sleep"   Guardsman of Gor pg. 50
Gorean Sayings:
"...one who speaks of Home Stones should stand, for matters of honor are here involved, and honor is respected in the barbaric codes of Gor."   Tarnsman of Gor pg. 27
"Let us drink wine."    Tarnsman of Gor pg. 132
"...only the heart of the mountain larl brings more luck than that of the vicious and cunning sleen."   Outlaw of Gor pg. 37
Gorean phrase of farewell .. "I wish you well."  Outlaw of Gor pg.170
"It is better, as the goreans say, for one man to die than many."  Priest Kings of Gor pg. 20
"The words for 'stranger' and 'friend' in Gorean, are the same word."  Priest Kings of Gor pg. 298
"Gold has no caste"   Nomads of Gor pg. 84
"Any man who permits himself to care for a slavegirl is a fool."   Nomads of Gor pg. 111
"It is said, that any man who frees a slavegirl is a fool."   Nomads of Gor pg. 285
"There is in this a war in which the woman can respect only that man who can reduce her to utter defeat."   Nomads of Gor pg. 298
"Only the span of the wings of my tarn, only the girth of my tharlarion, only the width of my body, and no more and that but for the time it takes to pass"   Raiders of Gor pg. 11
"There was only gold, and power, and the bodies of women, and steel."  Raiders of Gor pg. 90
"Do not ask the stones or the trees how to live; they cannot tell you; they do not have tongues; do not ask the wise man how to live, for, if he knows, he will know he cannot tell you; if you would learn how to live do not ask the question; its answer is not in the question but in the answer, which is not in words; do not ask how to live, but, instead, proceed to do so."   Marauders of Gor pg. 9
"Only in a collar can a woman be truly free"   Tribesmen of Gor pg. 75
"More real than the law is the heart."   Tribesmen of Gor pg. 146
"Any woman who relishes a compliment is in her heart a slave girl. She wants to please." Beasts of Gor pg. 17
"No man respects a woman who knows what else to do with her."   Beasts of Gor pg. 434
"It is said that he whose lips have never touched those of a slave girl does not know, truly, what it is to hold a woman in his arms."    Beasts of Gor pg. 438
"Before the feast, go hungry"  Guardsman of Gor pg. 175
"He who ties a woman owns her"   Guardsman of Gor pg. 267
"There are no mere points of Honor."   Vagabonds of Gor pg. 63
"The most dangerous lies are those which we tell ourselves."   Vagabonds of Gor pg. 468
"The Free Woman is a riddle, the answer to which is the collar."   Magicians of Gor pg. 50
"Only a fool buys a woman clothed"   Magicians of Gor pg. 76
"The slave is a joy and a convenience to the warrior."   Magicians of Gor pg. 315
"It was nothing, that it would be no more than a sneeze."   Magicians of Gor pg. 405
Gorean Myths:
"On Gor," I said, "the myths have it that only the woman who has been an utter slave can truly be free." .............."It has nothing to do, I think," I said, "with what woman is actually slave or free, has little to do with the simplicity of chains or the collar, or the brand." .........."It means I think," I said, "that only the woman who has utterly surrendered -- and can utterly surrender -- loosing herself in a man's touch -- can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then free."   Nomads of Gor pg. 289
"The Gorean myths have it," I said, "that the woman longs for this identity-to be herself in being his-if only for the moment of paradox in which she is slave and thus freed."  Nomads of Gor pg. 291
Gorean Axioms:
"The Gorean senses or believes, that a city cannot be simply identified with its material elements, which under go their transformations even as do the cells of a human body. For them a city is almost a living thing, or more than a living thing. It is an entity with history, as stones and rivers do not have history; it is an entity with a tradition, a heritage, customs, practices, character, intentions, hopes. When a Gorean says, for example, that he is of Ar, or Ko-ro-ba, he is doing a great deal more than telling you of his place of residence."   Outlaw of Gor pg. 22
"At such time a man may not be spoken to, for according to the Gorean way of thinking pity humiliates both he who pities and he who is pitied. According to the Gorean way, one may love but one may not pity."   Outlaw of Gor pg. 31
"...the Gorean, who seems to think so little of women in some respects, celebrates them extravagantly in others. The Gorean is keenly susceptible to beauty; it gladdens his heart, and his songs and art are often paeans to it's glory. Gorean women, whether slave or free, know that their simple presence brings joy to men...."   Outlaw of Gor pg. 54
"It is said that as we are to the amoeba and the paramecium so are the Priest-Kings to us, that the highest and most lyric flights of our intellect are, when compared to the thoughts of the Priest Kings, but the chemical tropisms of the unicellular organism."   Outlaw of Gor pg. 172
"...from the Gorean's point of view, one of the most fearful things about slavery is that one looses one's name. That name which he has had from birth, by which he has called himself, and knows himself, that name which is so much a part of his own conception of himself, of his own true and most intimate identity, is suddenly gone."  Outlaw of Gor pg. 197
"The institution of freedom for women, as many goreans believed, was a mistake." Nomads of Gor pg. 286
"Goreans do not generally favor begging, and some regard it as an insult that there should be such, an insult to them and their city."   Assassin of Gor pg. 11
"Goreans are extremely sensitive about names, and who may speak them."   Assassin of Gor pg. 12
"The morality of Earth, from the Gorean point of view, is a morality which would be viewed as more appropriate to slaves than free men."   Marauders of Gor pg. 8
"Gorean morality encourages honor, courage, hardness and strength. To Gorean morality many Earth moralities might ask, "Why so hard?" To these Earth moralities, the Gorean ethos might ask, "Why so soft?"   Marauders of Gor pg. 8
"The morality of slaves says, "You are equal to me; we are both the same."; the morality of masters says, "We are not equal; we are not the same; become equal to me; then we will be the same." The morality of slaves reduces all to bondage; the morality of masters encourages all to attain, if they can, the heights of freedom."   Marauders of Gor pg. 8
"You may judge and scorn the Goreans if you wish. Know as well, however, that they judge and scorn you. They fulfill themselves as you do not. Hate them for their pride and power. They will pity you for your shame and weakness."  Beasts of Gor pg. 11
"The Gorean, in general, regards many things in a much more intense and personal way that, say, the informed man of Earth."    Beasts of Gor pg. 29
"The man of earth thinks of the world as being essentially dead; the Gorean thinks of his world as being essentially alive"   Beasts of Gor pg. 30
"A mountain is a mountain to Goreans, regardless of whether it be formed of soil and stone, or ice. We tend to think of mountains as being land formations. The Gorean tends to think more of them as being objects of a certain sort, rather than objects of a certain sort with a particular location."  Beasts of Gor pg. 37
"Honor is important to Goreans, in a way that those of earth might find hard to understand; .....those of earth find it natural that men should go to war over matters of gold and riches, but not honor; the Gorean, contrariwise, is more willing to submit matters of honor to the adjudication of steel than he is matters of riches and gold; there is simple explanation for this, honor is more important to him."  Beasts of Gor pg. 42
"Race, incidentally, is not a serious matter generally for Goreans, perhaps because of the intermixtures of people. Language and city, and caste, however, are matters of great moment to them, and provide sufficient basis for the discriminations in which human beings take such great delight."  Beasts of Gor pg. 156
"Gorean men ... you will learn are less tolerant of pretense then men of earth."  Beasts of Gor pg. 202
"The wife of Earth is, from the Gorean point of view, much overworked."   Beasts of Gor pg. 248
"Goreans, incidentally, doubt that any female is, qua female, irremediably or ultimately frigid."  Magicians of Gor pg.42 - 43
"The Gorean tends neither to view the world as a mechanical clockwork of interdependent parts, as a great, regular, predictable machine, docile to equations, obedient to abstractions, nor as a game of chance, inexplicable, meaningless and random at the core."  Magicians of Gor pg. 254
"The Gorean sees the world less as a puzzle than an opportunity, less as a datum to be explained than a bounty in which to rejoice, less as a problem to be solved than a gift to be gratefully received."  Magicians of Gor pg. 255
"..the Gorean, in spite of his awe of Priest-Kings, and the reverence he accords them, the gods of his world, does not think of them as having formed the world, nor of the world being in some form sense consequent upon their will. Rather the Priest-Kings are seen as being its children, too, like seen, and rain and man."  Magicians of Gor pg. 255
"...the Gorean tends to take such things as honor and truth very seriously. Give his culture and background, his values, he is often easier to impose upon than would be many others. ....he is likely, at least upon occasion, to be an easier mark for the fraud and charlatan than a more suspicious, cynical fellow. On the other hand, I do not encourage lying to Goreans. They do not like it."  Magicians of Gor pg. 255
"It is a common Gorean belief that all females are bred slaves. It is only that some have their collars and some, as yet, do not."  Magicians of Gor pg. 257