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A Long And Wicked Life Followed By Five Minutes Of Perfect Grace Gets You Into Heaven. An Equally Long Life Of Decent Living And Good Works Followed By One Outburst Of Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain- Then Have A Heart Attack At That Moment And Be Damned For Eternity. Is That The System?

-Robert A. Heinlein

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A Long And Wicked

Robert A. Heinlein

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A Long And Wicked Life Followed By Five Minutes Of Perfect Grace Gets You Into Heaven. An Equally Long Life Of Decent Living And Good Works Followed By One Outburst Of Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain- Then Have A Heart Attack At That Moment And Be Damned For Eternity. Is That The System?

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In Wilson's Scale Of Evaluations Breakfast Rated Just After Life Itself And Ahead Of The Chance Of Immortality.

A Generation Which Ignores History Has No Past — And No Future.

But Goodness Alone Is Never Enough. A Hard, Cold Wisdom Is Required For Goodness To Accomplish Good. Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

Being A Mother Is An Attitude, Not A Biological Relation.

It's Up To The Artist To Use Language That Can Be Understood, Not Hide It In Some Private Code... Obscurity Is Usually The Refuge Of Incompetence.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

Daughters Can Spend Ten Percent More Than A Man Can Make In Any Usual Occupation. That’s A Law Of Nature, To Be Known Henceforth As ‘harshaw’s Law.

Taxes Are Not Levied For The Benefit Of The Taxed.

What Are The Facts? Again And Again And Again – What Are The Facts? Shun Wishful Thinking, Ignore Divine Revelation, Forget What “the Stars Foretell,” Avoid Opinion, Care Not What The Neighbors Think, Never Mind The Unguessable “verdict Of History” – What Are The Facts, And To How Many Decimal Places? You Pilot Always Into An Unknown Future; Facts Are Your Single Clue. Get The Facts!

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

Anyone Who Clings To The Historically Untrue-and Thoroughly Immoral-doctrine That, 'violence Never Settles Anything' I Would Advise To Conjure The Ghosts Of Napoleon Bonaparte And The Duke Of Wellington And Let Them Debate It. The Ghost Of Hitler Could Referee, And The Jury Might Well Be The Dodo, The Great Auk And The Passenger Pigeon. Violence, Naked Force, Has Settled More Issues In History Than Has Any Other Factor, And The Contrary Opinion Is Wishful Thinking At Its Worst. Breeds That Forget This Basic Truth Have Always Paid For It With Their Lives And Freedom.

The Capacity Of The Human Mind For Swallowing Nonsense And Spewing It Forth In Violent And Repressive Action Has Never Yet Been Plumbed.

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

Whoring Is Like Military Service...okay In The Upper Brackets, Not So Good Lower Down.

Military Service

From The Strictest Humanitarian Viewpoint, Any Attempt To Stop The Processes By Which Over Crowded Cities Purge Themselves Is Not A Kindness.

Neither Individuals Nor Corporations Have Any Right To Come Into Court And Ask That The Clock Of History Be Stopped, Or Turned Back.

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

Was There Ever A Time When The Majority Was Right?

Consider The Black Widow Spider. It's A Timid Little Beastie, Useful And, For My Taste, The Prettiest Of The Arachnids, With Its Shiny, Patent-leather Finish And Its Red Hourglass Trademark. But The Poor Thing Has The Fatal Misfortune Of Possessing Enormously Too Much Power For Its Size. So Everybody Kills It On Sight.

Come Judgment Day, We May Find That Mumbo Jumbo The God Of The Congo Was The Big Boss All Along.

When Any Government, Or Any Church For That Matter, Undertakes To Say To Its Subjects, This You May Not Read, This You Must Not See, This You Are Forbidden To Know, The End Result Is Tyranny And Oppression No Matter How Holy The Motives.

If You Would Know A Man, Observe How He Treats A Cat.

Hate Always Sells Well, But For Repeat Trade And The Long Pull Happiness Is Sounder Merchandise.

If You Wanted To Teach A Baby A Lesson, Would You Cut Its Head Off?

Age Is Not An Accomplishment, And Youth Is Not A Sin.

The Extremely Tiny Fraction Who Think Regularly, Accurately, Creatively, And Without Self-delusion - In The Long Run, These Are The Only People Who Count.

If I Had Found Out Anything, It Was That They Could Print It Faster Than I Could Study It.

Like Every Living Thing Its Prime Characteristic Is A Blind, Unreasoned Instinct To Survive.

Stranger In A Strange Land

Our Behavior Is Different. How Often Have You Seen A Headline Like This?--two Die Attempting Rescue Of Drowning Child. If A Man Gets Lost In The Mountains, Hundreds Will Search And Often Two Or Three Searchers Are Killed. But The Next Time Somebody Gets Lost Just As Many Volunteers Turn Out. Poor Arithmetic, But Very Human. It Runs Through All Our Folklore, All Human Religions, All Our Literature--a Racial Conviction That When One Human Needs Rescue, Others Should Not Count The Price.

- I'm So Busy Doing What I Must Do That I Don't Have Time For What I Ought To Do... And I Never Get A Chance To Do What I Want To Do! - Son, That's Universal. The Way To Keep That Recipe From Killing You Is Occasionally To Do What You Want To Do Anyhow.

The Human Race Divides Politically Into Those Who Want People To Be Controlled And Those Who Have No Such Desire.

Nothing Could Go Wrong Because Nothing Had...i Meant "nothing Would." No - Then I Quit Trying To Phrase It, Realizing That If Time Travel Ever Became Widespread, English Grammar Was Going To Have To Add A Whole New Set Of Tenses To Describe Reflexive Situations - Conjugations That Would Make The French Literary Tenses And The Latin Historical Tenses Look Simple.

English Grammar

Do-gooding Is Like Treating Hemophilia - The Real Cure Is To Let Hemophiliacs Bleed To Death...before They Breed More Hemophiliacs.

Geniuses And Supergeniuses Always Make Their Own Rules About Sex As On Everything Else; They Do Not Accept The Monkey Customs Of Their Lessers.

Must Be Yearning Deep In Human Heart To Stop Other People From Doing As They Please.

When He Kisses You He Isn't Doing Anything Else. You're His Whole Universe, And The Moment Is Eternal Because He Doesn't Have Any Plans And Isn't Going Anywhere. Just Kissing You ... It's Overwhelming.

He's An Honest Politician--he Stays Bought.

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

A Great Artist Can Look At An Old Woman, Portray Her Exactly As She Is ... And Force The Viewer To See The Pretty Girl She Used To Be ... More Than That, He Can Make Anyone With The Sensitivity Of An Armadillo See That This Lovely Young Girl Is Still Alive

Age Does Not Bring Wisdom... But It Does Give Perspective... And The Saddest Sight Of All Is To See, Far Behind You, Temptations You've Resisted.

Sex Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

Don't Explain Computers To Laymen. Simpler To Explain Sex To A Virgin.

Never Tease An Old Dog; He Might Have One Bite Left.

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

On The Steps Of The Federal Building We Ran Into Carmencita Ibanez, A Classmate Of Ours And One Of The Nice Things About Being A Member Of A Race With Two Sexes.

Peace Is An Extension Of War By Political Means. Plenty Of Elbow-room Is Pleasanter -- And Much Safer.

Government! Three Fourths Parasitic And The Other Fourth Stupid Fumbling.

Yes, Boss?' Dorcas, The Last Twenty Or Thirty Years I've Been A Worthless, No-good Parasite.' She Yawned Again. 'everybody Knows That.' Nevermind The Flattery. There Comes A Time In Every Man's Life When He Has To Stop Being Sensible--a Time To Stand Up And Be Counted--strike A Blow For Liberty--smite The Wicked.' Ummm...' So Quit Yawning, The Time Has Come.' She Glanced Down. 'maybe I Had Better Get Dressed.

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

Always Listen To Experts. They'll Tell You What Can't Be Done, And Why. Then Do It.

Love Is That Condition In Which The Happiness Of Another Person Is Essential To Your Own.

There Is An Old, Old Story About A Theologian Who Was Asked To Reconcile The Doctrine Of Divine Mercy With The Doctrine Of Infant Damnation. 'the Almighty,' He Explained, 'finds It Necessary To Do Things In His Official And Public Capacity Which In His Private And Personal Capacity He Deplores.

Those Who Refuse To Support And Defend The State Have No Claim To Protection By That State. Killing An Anarchist Or A Pacifist Should Not Be Considered "murder" In A Legalistic Sense. The Offense Against The State, If Any, Should Be "using Deadly Weapons Within City Limits," Or "creating A Traffic Hazard," Or Other Misdemeanor.

Nothing Gives Life More Zest That Running For Your Life.

Most People Who Sneer At Technology Would Starve To Death If The Engineering Infrastructure Were Removed.

Physicians Had Gone To Their Graves Calling Pasteur A Liar, A Fool, Or Worse—without Examining Evidence Which Their “common Sense” Told Them Was Impossible.

Everything In Excess! To Enjoy The Flavor Of Life, Take Big Bites. Moderation Is For Monks.

War Is Not Violence And Killing, Pure And Simple; War Is Controlled Violence, For A Purpose. The Purpose Of War Is To Support Your Government's Decisions By Force. The Purpose Is Never To Kill The Enemy Just To Be Killing Him But To Make Him Do What You Want Him To Do. Not Killing... But Controlled And Purposeful Violence.

The Death Rate Is The Same For Us As For Anybody ... One Person, One Death, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

Why Don't They Make More Science Fiction Movies? The Answer To Any Question Starting, Why Don't They- Is Almost Always, Money.

Spacemen Die If They Stay In One Place.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

The Bible Is Such A Gargantuan Collection Of Conflicting Values That Anyone Can Prove Anything From It.

If Tempted By Something That Feels 'altruistic,' Examine Your Motives And Root Out That Self-deception. Then, If You Still Want To Do It, Wallow In It!

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

Almost Everything About A Human Creature Is Ridiculous, Except Its Ability To Suffer Bravely And Die Gallantly For Whatever It Loves And Believes In. The Validity Of That Belief, The Appropriateness Of That Love, Is Irrelevant; It Is The Bravery And The Gallantry That Count.

Nursing Does Not Diminish The Beauty Of A Woman's Breasts; It Enhances Their Charm By Making Them Look Lived In And Happy.

It Is Said That God Notes Each Sparrow That Falls. And So He Does. But The Proper Closest Statement Of It That Can Be Made In English Is That God Cannot Avoid Noting The Sparrow Because The Sparrow Is God. And When A Cat Stalks A Sparrow Both Of Them Are God, Carrying Out God's Thoughts.

In Handling A Stinging Insect, Move Very Slowly.

Autobiography Is Usually Honest But It Is Never Truthful.

There Are Two Ways Of Forming An Opinion. One Is The Scientific Method; The Other, The Scholastic. To The Scientific Mind, Experimental Proof Is All-important, And Theory Is Merely A Convenience In Description, To Be Junked When It No Longer Fits. To The Academic Mind, Authority Is Everything, And Facts Are Junked When They Do Not Fit Theory.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

Must Be A Yearning Deep In Human Heart To Stop Other People From Doing As They Please. Rules, Laws - Always For Other Fellow. A Murky Part Of Us, Something We Had Before We Came Down Out Of Trees, And Failed To Shuck When We Stood Up.

One Man's Theology Is Another Man's Belly Laugh.

Please Don't Invent A Debt That Does Not Exist, Or Next You Will Be Trying To Feel Gratitude - And That Is The Treacherous First Step Toward Complete Moral Degradation.

A Handy Short Definition Of Almost All Science Fiction Might Read: Realistic Speculation About Possible Future Events, Based Solidly On Adequate Knowledge Of The Real World, Past And Present, And On A Thorough Understanding Of The Nature And Significance Of The Scientific Method.

Thorough Understanding

I Have Never Been Able To See How A Thirty-year Old Moron Can Vote More Wisely Than A Fifteen-year Old Genius.

Yield To Temptation. It May Not Pass Your Way Again.

...more Than Six People Cannot Agree On Anything, Three Is Better And One Is Perfect For A Job That One Can Do. This Is Why Parliamentary Bodies All Through History, When They Accomplished Anything, Owed It To A Few Strong Men Who Dominated The Rest.

[t]here Seems To Have Been An Actual Decline In Rational Thinking. The United States Had Become A Place Where Entertainers And Professional Athletes Were Mistaken For People Of Importance. They Were Idolized And Treated As Leaders; Their Opinions Were Sought On Everything And They Took Themselves Just As Seriously-after All, If An Athlete Is Paid A Million Or More A Year, He Knows He Is Important ... So His Opinions Of Foreign Affairs And Domestic Policies Must Be Important, Too, Even Though He Proves Himself To Be Ignorant And Subliterate Every Time He Opens His Mouth.

Selfishness Is The Bedrock On Which All Moral Behavior Starts And It Can Be Immoral Only When It Conflicts With A Higher Moral Imperative.

First You Must Learn To Control Your Self. The Rest Follows. Blessed Is He Who Knows Himself And Commands Himself, For The World Is His And Love And Happiness And Peace Walk With Him Wherever He Goes.

There Is No Conclusive Evidence Of Life After Death, But There Is No Evidence Of Any Sort Against It. Soon Enough You Will Know, So Why Fret About It?

Life After Death

Never Try To Have The Last Word. You Might Get It.

Heinlein's Rules For Writers Rule One: You Must Write Rule Two: Finish What Your Start Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except To Editorial Order Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story On The Market Rule Five: You Must Keep It On The Market Until It Has Sold

In The Eighty Or Ninety Years I Have Given To This Subject, Trying To Trace Out The Meanderings Of Their Twisty Little Minds, The Only Thing That I Have Learned For Certain About Women Is That When A Gal Is Gonna, She's Gonna. All A Man Can Do Is Cooperate With The Inevitable.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

If God Existed (a Question Concerning Which Jubal Maintained A Meticulous Intellectual Neutrality) And If He Desired To Be Worshiped (a Proposition Which Jubal Found Inherently Improbable But Conceivably Possible In The Dim Light Of His Own Ignorance), Then (stipulating Affirmatively Both The Above) It Nevertheless Seemed Wildly Unlikely To Jubal To The Point Of Reductio Ad Absurdum That A God Potent To Shape Galaxies Would Be Titillated And Swayed By The Whoop-te-do Nonsense The Fosterites Offered Him As "worship.

Work Is Not An End In Itself; There Must Always Be Time Enough For Love.

Throughout History, Poverty Is The Normal Condition Of Man. Advances Which Permit This Norm To Be Exceeded — Here And There, Now And Then — Are The Work Of An Extremely Small Minority, Frequently Despised, Often Condemned, And Almost Always Opposed By All Right-thinking People. Whenever This Tiny Minority Is Kept From Creating, Or (as Sometimes Happens) Is Driven Out Of A Society, The People Then Slip Back Into Abject Poverty. This Is Known As "bad Luck.

I'm Afraid Of Coaching, Of Writer's Classes, Of Writer's Magazines, Of Books On How To Write. They Give Me Centipede Trouble - You Know The Yarn About The Centipede Who Was Asked How He Managed All His Feet? He Tried To Answer, Stopped To Think About It, And Was Never Able To Walk Another Step.

They Didn't Want It Good, They Wanted It Wednesday.

Money Is The Sincerest Of All Flattery. Women Love To Be Flattered. So Do Men.

It Is A Truism That Almost Any Sect, Cult, Or Religion Will Legislate Its Creed Into Law If It Acquires The Political Power To Do So.

Certainly The Game Is Rigged. Don't Let That Stop You; If You Don't Bet You Can't Win.

Some Logics Get Nervous Breakdowns. Overloaded Phone System Behaves Like Frightened Child. Mike Did Not Have Upsets, Acquired Sense Of Humor Instead. Low One. If He Were A Man, You Wouldn't Dare Stoop Over. His Idea Of Thigh-slapper Would Be To Dump You Out Of Bed — Or Put Itch Powder In Pressure Suit.

Premenstrual Syndrome: Just Before Their Periods Women Behave The Way Men Do All The Time.

Budget The Luxuries First.

Patriotism Is Not 'my Country Right Or Wrong'; Patriotism Means Loving The Ideals For Which America Stands And Having The Courage To Speak Up When These Ideals Are Distorted For Personal Or Political Gain. The American Government Was Instituted To Be The Servant Of The People, Not Our Master.

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

Are You Trying To Tell All Of Us We Have A Bad Signal-to-noise Ratio?

You Got The Impression That He Never Needed To Sleep - Just Ten-thousand-mile Checkups And Dust Him Off Occasionally.

The Saddest Thing About Ephemerals Was That Their Little Lives Rarely Held Time Enough For Love.

The Nice Thing About Citing God As An Authority Is That You Can Prove Anything You Set Out To Prove.

God Is Omnipotent, Omniscient, And Omnibenevolent - It Says So Right Here On The Label. If You Have A Mind Capable Of Believing All Three Of These Attributes Simultaneously, I Have A Wonderful Bargain For You. No Checks, Please. Cash And In Small Bills.

Nobody Ever Wins A Lawsuit But The Lawyers.

The Way To Find Justice Is To Deal Fairly With Other People And Not Worry About How They Deal With You.

The Price Of Freedom Is The Willingness To Do Sudden Battle Anywhere, Any Time And With Utter Recklessness.

Price Of Freedom

Most Women Are Damn Fools And Children. But They've Got More Range Than We've Got. The Brave Ones Are Braver, The Good Ones Are Better - And The Vile Ones Are Viler, For That Matter.

The Early Worm Deserves The Bird.

A Child's Life Is Like A Piece Of Paper On Which Every Person Leaves A Mark.

If You Do Not Believe That A Man Will Commit Murder For One Can Of Tomatoes, Then You Have Never Been Hungry.

Progress Is Made By Lazy Men Looking For Easier Ways To Do Things.

Animals Can Be Driven Crazy By Placing Too Many In Too Small A Pen. Homo Sapiens Is The Only Animal That Voluntarily Does This To Himself.

We Came Here For A Small, Informal Meeting. We Find You've Turned It Into A Circus. Well, If You're Going To Have A Circus, You've Got To Have Elephants.

The Golden Sunshine Of Italy Congealed Into Tears. Here's To Alcoholic Brotherhood ... Much More Suited To The Frail Human Soul, If Any, Than Any Other Sort.

Sense Is Never Common.

The Commonest Weakness Of Our Race Is Our Ability To Rationalize Our Most Selfish Purposes.

Specialisation Is For Insects!

Democracy Is Based On The Assumption That A Million Men Are Wiser Than One Man. How's That Again? I Missed Something.

Under Our System Every Voter And Officeholder Is A Man Who Has Demonstrated Through Voluntary And Difficult Service That He Places The Welfare Of The Group Ahead Of Personal Advantage.

By The Data To Date, There Is Only One Animal In The Galaxy Dangerous To Man -- Man Himself. So He Must Supply His Own Indispensable Competition. He Has No Enemy To Help Him.

Free Will Is A Golden Thread Running Through The Frozen Matrix Of Fixed Events.

Whether The Authorities Be Invaders Or Merely Local Tyrants, The Effect Of Such [gun Control] Laws Is To Place The Individual At The Mercy Of The State, Unable To Resist.

Logic Is A Feeble Reed, Friend. "logic" Proved That Airplanes Can't Fly And That H-bombs Won't Work And That Stones Don't Fall Out Of The Sky. Logic Is A Way Of Saying That Anything Which Didn't Happen Yesterday Won't Happen Tomorrow.

Once A Man Gets A Reputation As A Liar, He Might As Well Be Struck Dumb, For People Do Not Listen To The Wind.

The Mind's Ability To Rationalize It's Own Shortcomings Is Unlimited; I Am No Exception.

Library Science Is The Key To All Science, Just As Mathematics Is Its Language - And Civilization Will Rise Or Fall, Depending On How Well Librarians Do Their Jobs.

Never Attempt To Teach A Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

Being Sorry Won't Get You Into Heaven. Get Happy, Son. Get That Old Spring Into Your Step And Stay On Your Toes.

People Simplify 'apollonian' Into 'mild', And 'calm', And 'cool'. But 'apollonian' And 'dionysian' Are Two Sides Of One Coin--a Nun Kneeling In Her Cell, Holding Perfectly Still, Can Be In Ecstacy More Frenzied Than Any Priestess Of Pan Priapus Celebrating The Vernal Equinox.

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

The Earth Is Just Too Small And Fragile A Basket For The Human Race To Keep All Its Eggs In.

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch." A Libertarian Movement Slogan - The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, 1907.

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

I Counted To Ten Slowly, Using Binary Notation.

Ninety Percent Of All Human Wisdom Is The Ability To Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

There Is Solemn Satisfaction In Doing The Best You Can For Eight Billion People. Perhaps Their Lives Have No Cosmic Significance, But They Have Feelings. They Can Hurt.

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

A Woman Is Not Property, And Husbands Who Think Otherwise Are Living In A Dreamworld.

By Cultivating The Beautiful We Scatter The Seeds Of Heavenly Flowers, As By Doing Good We Cultivate Those That Belong To Humanity.

The Hardest Part Of Gaining Any New Idea Is Sweeping Out The False Idea Occupying That Niche.

There Are Things Which Cannot Be Taught In Ten Easy Lessons, Nor Popularized For The Masses; They Take Years Of Skull Sweat.

I Did The Only Really Brave Thing I Have Ever Done In My Life: I Inched Forward.

Hit It! You Have To Hit It Harder Than That. Electrons Are Timid Little Things But Notional; You Have To Let Them Know Who’s Boss.

Never Own More Than You Can Carry In Both Hands At A Dead Run.

Morals - All Correct Moral Laws - Derive From The Instinct To Survive. Moral Behavior Is Survival Behavior Above The Individual Level.

Women And Cats Will Do As They Please, And Men And Dogs Should Relax And Get Used To The Idea.

The First Principle Of Freedom Is The Right To Go To Hell In Your Own Handbasket.

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

There Are Hidden Contradictions In The Minds Of People Who "love Nature" While Deploring The "artificialities" With Which "man Has Spoiled Nature.'" The Obvious Contradiction Lies In Their Choice Of Words, Which Imply That Man And His Artifacts Are Not Part Of "nature" : But Beavers And Their Dams Are.

A Long And Wicked Life Followed By Five Minutes Of Perfect Grace Gets You Into Heaven. An Equally Long Life Of Decent Living And Good Works Followed By One Outburst Of Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain- Then Have A Heart Attack At That Moment And Be Damned For Eternity. Is That The System?

Cast Me Into A Dungeon, Burn Me At The Stake, Crown Me King Of Kings, I Can 'pursue Happiness' As Long As My Brain Lives - But Neither Gods Nor Saints, Wise Men Nor Subtle Drugs, Can Ensure That I Will Catch It.

The Trouble With Conspiracies Is That They Rot Internally.

Democracy Is Four Wolves And A Sheep Voting On Dinner.

Does History Record Any Case In Which The Majority Was Right?

A Critic Is A Man Who Creates Nothing And Thereby Feels Qualified To Judge The Work Of Creative Men. There Is Logic In This; He Is Unbiased, He Hates All Creative People Equally.

Only A Sadistic Scoundrel-or A Fool-tells The Bald Truth On Social Occasions.

No Matter What I Said They Insisted On Thinking Of God As Something Outside Themselves. Something That Yearns To Take Every Indolent Moron To His Breast And Comfort Him. The Notion That The Effort Has To Be Their Own . . . And That The Trouble They Are In Is All Their Own Doing . . . Is One That They Can't Or Won't Entertain.

Straining At Gnats And Swallowing Camels Is A Required Course In Law Schools.

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

I Have Never Been Able To See Life As Anything But A Vast Complicated Practical Joke, And It's Better To Laugh Than Cry.

Decency Is Not News; It Is Buried In The Obituaries - But It Is A Force Stronger Than Crime.

Anyone Who Can Worship A Trinity And Insist That His Religion Is A Monotheism Can Believe Anything.

From Somewhere, Back In My Youth, Heard Prof Say, 'manuel, When Faced With A Problem You Do Not Understand, Do Any Part Of It You Do Understand, Then Look At It Again.' He Had Been Teaching Me Something He Himself Did Not Understand Very Well—something In Math—but Had Taught Me Something Far More Important, A Basic Principle.

It Was Better To Live With Disappointment And Frustration Than To Live Without Hope.

Death Is An Old Friend; I Know Him Well. I Lived With Him, Ate With Him, Slept With Him; To Meet Him Again Does Not Frighten Me Death Is As Necessary As Birth, As Happy In Its Own Way.

Darling, A True Lady Takes Off Her Dignity With Her Clothes And Does Her Whorish Best. At Other Times You Can Be As Modest And Dignified As Your Persona Requires.

Have You Ever Noticed How Much They Look Like Orchids? Lovely!

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

It Seems To Me That The Secret Of True Happiness In Life Is To Know What You Are And Then Be Content To Be That, In Style, Head Up And Proud, And Not Yearn To Be Something Else.

A Girl's Name Ending In 'a' - That Always Suggests A 'c' Cup.

Writing Is Not Necessarily Something To Be Ashamed Of, But Do It In Private And Wash Your Hands Afterwards.

The Greatest Fallacy Of Democracy Is That Everyone's Opinion Is Worth The Same.

It's Better To Copulate Than Not.

I Have Never Been Impressed By The Formal Schools Of Ethics.

Anything Free Costs Twice As Much In The Long Run Or Turns Out Worthless.

How Can I Possibly Put A New Idea Into Your Heads, If I Do Not First Remove Your Delusions?

Expertise In One Field Does Not Carry Over Into Other Fields. But Experts Often Think So. The Narrower Their Field Of Knowledge The More Likely They Are To Think So.

Moving Parts In Rubbing Contact Require Lubrication To Avoid Excessive Wear. Honorifics And Formal Politeness Provide Lubrication Where People Rub Together. Often The Very Young, The Untravelled, The Naive, The Sophisticated Deplore These Formalities As 'empty,' 'meaningless,' Or 'dishonest,' And Scorn To Use Them. No Matter How 'pure' Their Motives, They Thereby Throw Sand Into Machinery That Does Not Work Too Well At Best.

Sin Lies Only In Hurting Others Unnecessarily. All Other "sins" Are Invented Nonsense.

Mighty Little Force Is Needed To Control A Man Whose Mind Has Been Hoodwinked; Contrariwise, No Amount Of Force Can Control A Free Man, A Man Whose Mind Is Free. No, Not The Rack, Not Fission Bombs, Not Anything - You Can't Conquer A Free Man; The Most You Can Do Is Kill Him.

If Possible, Leave Room For Your Enemy To Become Your Friend.

I Believe In My Neighbors. I Know Their Faults And I Know That Their Virtues Far Outweigh Their Faults.

In A Mature Society, 'civil Servant' Is Semantically Equal To 'civil Master.'

It's An Indulgence To Sit In A Room And Discuss Your Beliefs As If They Were A Juicy Piece Of Gossip.

The Ordinary Bloke Will Not Voluntarily Pay For "art" That Leaves Him Unmoved--if He Does Pay For It, The Money Has To Be Conned Out Of Him, By Taxes And Such.

Money Problems Can Always Be Solved By A Man Not Frightened By Them.

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

What Is Supposed To Happen In A Democracy Is That Each Sovereign Citizen Will Always Vote In The Public Interest For The Safety And Welfare Of All. But What Does Happen Is That He Votes His Own Self-interest As He Sees It... Which For The Majority Translates As 'bread And Circuses'.

Between Being 'right' And Being Kind, I Know Which Way I Vote.

Cats Have No Sense Of Humor, They Have Terribly Inflated Egos, And They Are Very Touchy.

It Is Impossible For Anyone To Be Responsible For Another Person's Behavior. The Most You Or Any Leader Can Do Is To Encourage Each One To Be Responsible For Himself.

Following Your Own Path

The Only Thing Privacy Laws Accomplish Is Making The Bugs Smaller.

In A Family Argument, If It Turns Out You Are Right, Apologize At Once.

Each Generation Thinks It Invented Sex; Each Generation Is Totally Mistaken. Anything Along That Line Today Was Commonplace Both In Pompeii And In Victorian England; The Differences Lie Only In The Degree Of Coverup - If Any.

Spacemen - Men Who Work In Space, Pilots And Jetmen And Astrogators And Such - Are Men Who Like A Few Million Miles Of Elbow Room.

Every Law That Was Ever Written Opened Up A New Way To Graft.

The Two Highest Achievements Of The Human Mind Are The Twin Concepts Of "loyalty" And "duty". Whenever These Twin Concepts Fall Into Disrepute, Get Out Of There Fast! You May Possibly Save Yourself, But It Is Too Late To Save That Society. It Is Doomed.

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