Sayings common on Gor

Gorean sayings about Home Stones and cities

Indeed, there is a saying on Gor, a saying whose origin is lost in the past of this strange planet, that 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 page 27

There is a Gorean proverb that a man who is returning to his city is not to be detained.
Outlaw

There is a saying on Gor that the laws of a city extend no further than its walls.
Outlaw

“Only one can sit upon the throne,” said Msaliti.
“That is a saying in the north,” I said.
“I know,” said Msaliti. “But it is a saying that is also known east of Schendi.”
“Even east of Schendi,” I smiled, “the throne is a lonely country.”
“He who sits upon the throne, it is said,” said Msaliti, “is the most alone of men.”
Explorers

Gorean sayings about women

It is said that only a man knows how to tie a Turian camisk on a girl properly. There are many such saying on Gor.
Captive

Gorean thinking on this matter tends to be expressed by the saying that a slave girl grows bold if her lips are allowed to touch the name of her master. On the other hand, I, like many Gorean masters, provided the girl was not testing or challenging me, and provided that free women, or others, were not present whom I had no wish to offend or upset, preferred as a matter of fact to have my own name on the girl’s lips, for I think, with acknowledged vanity, that there are few sounds as pleasurable as the sound of one’s own name on the lips of a beautiful woman.
Priest Kings

Slave girls relish compliments. Indeed there is a Gorean saying to the effect that any woman who relishes a compliment is in her heart a slave girl. She wants to please. Most Gorean men would not think twice about collaring a girl who responds, smiling, to compliments. A desire to please her Master. When she is complimented she knows she has pleased him.
Beasts page 17

"No man respects a woman who knows what else to do with her," she said.
"It is a Gorean saying," I said.
Beasts page 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 page 438

"Buy me, Master," begged Beverly.
I then made her respond to me, and she began to moan. "I want to be bought," she moaned.
To beg to be purchased is a slave's act. That is a saying of Goreans. I think it is true. In this, then, Miss Henderson provided further confirmation of the rightness of the collar upon her throat, that she was a natural and true slave.
Rogue page 221

There is a Gorean saying that free women, raised gently in the high cylinders, in their robes of concealment, unarmed, untrained in weapons, may, by the slaver, be plucked like flowers.
There is no such saying pertaining to panther girls.
Hunters page 118

"He who ties a woman owns her," is a Gorean saying.
Guardsman page 267

A Gorean saying came to mind, that the free woman is a riddle, the answer to which is the collar.
Magicians page 50

There is a Gorean saying that only a fool buys a woman clothed.
Magicians page 76

No master, it is said, who has not denied his girl food knows her.
Tribesmen page 48

"Only in a collar can a woman be truly free," I said. It was a Gorean saying.
Tribesmen page 75

"It is said," she remarked, her eyes mischievous, "that any man who frees a slave girl is a fool."
Nomads page 285

"You will learn when you are sold to him," said Targo. "Curiosity is not becoming in a Kajira," said Targo. "You might be beaten for it."
I remembered that the large man, on the planet Earth, had said to me this thing. I gathered that it was a Gorean saying.
Captive

She was a juicy slave, and one of high intelligence. She was not without interest. I rather liked the look of my collar on her throat.
I reminded myself that it was said that panther girls, once conquered, make excellent slaves.
I think it is a true saying.
Hunters

There is a saying in Gorean, that the chains of a slave girl are heaviest in Port Kar. I did not think, truthfully, however, that Port Kar was unusual in its treatment of female slaves. Gorean men, generally, are not easy with them. The saying is probably motivated not so much by an objective analysis of the treatment of enslaved women in that city as by the fear and distrust which Port Kar has historically precipitated in the hearts of its enemies.
Explorers

Miscellaneous Gorean sayings

"Tonight," she said, "let us drink wine."
It was a Gorean expression, a fatalistic maxim in which the events of the morrow were cast into the laps of the Priest-Kings.
Tarnsman page 132

It is said that only the heart of the mountain larl brings more luck than that of the vicious and cunning sleen.
Outlaw page 37

Once one has been a tarnsman, it is said, one must return again and again to the giant, savage birds. I think that this is a true saying.
Outlaw

To live a tarn must fly, high, far and often. A Gorean saying has it that they are brothers of the wind, and how could one expect such a creature to survive confinement? Like its brother the wind when the tarn is not free it has no choice but to die.
Priest Kings

"Before the feast, go hungry." So say the Goreans.
Guardsman page 175

"Do you not remember what he said in his insulae," I asked Marcus, "that it would be no more than a sneeze?"
"Yes," said Marcus. That is a Gorean expression, incidentally, that something would be no more than a sneeze.
Magicians page 404-405

There is a saying on Gor, "Gold has no caste." It is a saying of which the merchants are fond.
Nomads page 84

This was a paraphrase of a saying common on Gor, given by passing strangers to those through whose territories they would travel: 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 page 11

"It is said, " said Samos, "that only weaklings, and fools, and men who deserve to be slave girls, fall slave to women."
Hunters page 13

But the Goreans have a saying, which came to me in the darkness, in the hall, "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 page 10

I had been taught, long ago, by Kamchak of the Tuchuks, at a banquet in Turia, that where weapons may not be carried, it is well to carry weapons.
Marauders page 41

"But," said the Older Tarl, "you are a Warrior."
"Yes," I said, "I am a Warrior."
"Until you find Talena," he said, "your companion is peril and steel."
It was on old Warrior saying.
Priest Kings>

In the codes of the warriors, there is a saying, "Be strong, and do as you will. The swords of others will set your limits."
Marauders

"There is a time and a place for speaking, as there is a time and a place for steel." It is a saying of the warriors.
Slave Girl page 269

"You know the desert?" asked T'Zshal.
"The desert is my mother, and my father," said Hassan. It was a saying of the Tahari.
Tribesmen

A good fight, I have heard men of the Tahari say, licking their lips, justifies any cause.
Tribesmen page 177

"It was an amusement on my part," smiled Saphrar, "to speak your name at that time to see what you would do, to give you something, so to speak, to stir in your wine."
It was a Turian saying. They used wines in which, as a matter of fact, things could be and were, upon occasion, stirred mostly spices and sugars.
Nomads

...and yet I knew that in each dirt-floored cone of straw that served as the dwelling place of a peasant and his family, there was, by the fire hole, a Home Stone; the peasants themselves, though regarded as the lowest caste on all Gor by most Goreans, call themselves proudly the ox on which the Home Stone rests, and I think their saying is true.
Raiders

He who can bend the longbow, a peasant saying has it, cannot be slave.
Women, of course, it might be noted, lack the strength to bend this bow. I suppose if they could bend the bow, the saying would not exist or would be altered. That is the way men are.
Slave Girl

I threw the cloak to the grass and knelt at his feet, as though chained. I looked up at him. He was now standing on his feet, and he looked down at me, tenderly.
"I am chained at your feet," I said. It was a saying of a Gorean slave, to express her feelings.
"Yes," he said, gently.
Captive

"Excellent," said Verna. She looked down at me, and laughed. "Any panther girl," she said, "who falls to men deserves the collar." She fingered the hilt of the knife. "There is a saying among panther girls," she said, "that any girl who permits herself to fall to men desires in her heart to be their slave."
Hunters