Conan the Barbarian Quotes: What Is Best in Life?

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What is best in life? The famous Conan the Barbarian quote

Without a doubt, the most famous Conan quote is this one:

“To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

It is Conan’s answer to the question: “What is best in life?”

I was lucky enough to see the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film in the cinema again a few years ago, and the whole crowd absolutely roared at this part. It is brutal, iconic, and somehow perfect.

But did you know it is not actually a Robert E. Howard quote? More on that below, but for now…enough talk! Let the generator choose a quote.

Random Robert E. Howard quote generator

You can use the generator above to summon a random line from Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Red Sonya or the wider worlds of Robert E. Howard.

Some quotes are from Howard’s original stories. Others come from the Conan films and related sources. I’ve tried to label the source clearly where possible.

What is best in life?

The line works because it is so simple. Conan is not giving a clever answer, or a civilised answer, or even a particularly sane answer. He is giving the answer of a man shaped by slavery, violence and revenge.

That’s the 1982 film’s Conan in a nutshell: brutal, mythic, almost elemental.

Howard’s original Conan is broader than that. He is still savage, of course, but he is also witty, suspicious, practical, poetic and much more talkative than the film sometimes suggests. That is part of the fun of comparing the movie quotes with the original Robert E. Howard stories.

The origin of the “to crush your enemies” quote

The “to crush your enemies” quote was not written by Robert E. Howard.

It appears in John Milius’s 1982 Conan the Barbarian, but its deeper origin seems to be Harold Lamb’s Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men. In Lamb’s book, Genghis Khan gives a similar answer about the greatest happiness in life: defeating enemies, taking their goods, and hearing the lamentation of their women.

That connection is actually very fitting. Howard admired fierce historical figures, and Harold Lamb was one of the historical adventure writers he respected. The film also gives Conan a loyal companion named Subotai, echoing one of Genghis Khan’s greatest generals.

So the famous quote is not straight from Howard, but it still belongs in Conan’s cinematic legend.

Thanks to The Barbarian Keep for this detailed extra information.

Conan book quotes vs Conan movie quotes

One thing worth knowing: the most famous Conan movie quotes are not always the same as the best Robert E. Howard Conan quotes.

The 1982 film gave us lines and images like “What is best in life?”, Conan’s prayer to Crom, the Riddle of Steel, the Wheel of Pain, the Tree of Woe, Thulsa Doom’s speeches, and Valeria’s “Do you want to live forever?”

Howard’s original stories are very different. His Conan is not silent. He is a thief, pirate, mercenary, king, drinker, fighter, wanderer and occasional philosopher. He can be funny, cynical, poetic and surprisingly sharp.

That is why I wanted this page to include both sides – the famous film lines and the stranger, richer quotes from the original stories that make them so great.

A personal favourite Conan quote of mine is: “I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

If that doesn’t show the world that Conan isn’t just a stupid brute, I don’t know what will.

The next, another favourite of mine, is from The Tower of the Elephant. “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing”.

A very fitting quote indeed!

Crom quotes and Conan’s view of the gods

Crom deserves his own mention.

In Howard’s stories, Crom is not a comforting god. He gives men strength at birth, then leaves them to use it. Conan does not expect kindness from him, and he certainly does not waste much time praying.

That is why Crom quotes work so well. They sum up something essential about Conan: no begging, no soft promises, no easy rescue. Just strength, fate, steel and the will to survive.

The famous prayer to Crom from the 1982 film is not a direct Howard quote, but it fits the mood of the film perfectly.

It’s quite different from the books however, where Conan does not pray to Crom.

In fact, Conan specifically says “What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”.

Robert E. Howard quotes beyond Conan

Conan is the giant at the centre of the Howard-Verse, but he is not the whole kingdom.

Robert E. Howard also created Kull, the brooding Atlantean king of Valusia (Kull chronology here); Solomon Kane, the grim Puritan wanderer; Bran Mak Morn, the tragic king of the Picts; and Red Sonya of Rogatino, the original Howard character who later inspired Red Sonja.

Their quotes have a different flavour, but they often circle the same themes: civilisation and barbarism, courage and doom, lost kingdoms, violent justice, strange gods and the thin line between man and myth. I’ve included many of the best in the quote generator above.

Famous Conan quotes often misattributed

A few quick notes, because Conan quotes and Howard characters are often mislabelled online:

• “What is best in life?” – the question asked to Conan in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian film.
• “To crush your enemies…” – the answer given by Conan in the 1982 film, likely inspired by Harold Lamb’s Genghis Khan passage.
• Conan’s prayer to Crom – from the 1982 film. In the books, Conan does not really pray to Crom.
• “By this axe I rule!” – King Kull, not Conan. It was also the original title of the story that Robert E. Howard later rewrote into The Phoenix on the Sword.
• Red Sonya – Howard’s original character from The Shadow of the Vulture. Red Sonja came later and was created by Roy Thomas, the writer of Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comic.

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