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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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Anyone Who Clings To

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

If You Don't Like Yourself, You Can't Like Other People. -- Lazarus Long.

Who Is More Real? Homer Or Ulysses? Shakespeare Or Hamlet? Burroughs Or Tarzan?

An Invention Is Something That Was "impossible" Up To Then That's Why Governments Grant Patents.

But If You Didn't Have More Urgent Things To Do After Supper [in Boot Camp], You Could Write A Letter, Loaf, Gossip, Discuss The Myriad Mental Shortcomings Of Sergeants And, Dearest Of All, Talk About The Female Of The Species (we Became Convinced That There Was No Such Creatures, Just Mythology Created By Inflamed Imaginations - One Boy In Our Company Claimed To Have Seen A Girl, Over At Regimental Headquarters; He Was Unanimously Judged A Liar And A Braggart).

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Oh, You Have To Charge 'em, Jubal. The Marks Won't Pay Attention If It's Free.

Women Seem To Have Almost Unlimited Capacity For Forgiveness. (since It Is Usually A Man Who Needs Forgiveness, This Must Be A Racial Survival Trait.

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Behind Every Mystery Lies Another Mystery.

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.

No Intelligent Man Has Any Respect For An Unjust Law.

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When Railroading Time Comes You Can Railroad—but Not Before.

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Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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English Grammar

Magic Is Not Science, It Is A Collection Of Ways To Do Things Ways That Work But Often We Don't Know Why.

There Is No Worse Tyranny Than To Force A Man To Pay For What He Does Not Want Merely Because You Think It Would Be Good For Him.

A Society That Gets Rid Of All Its Troublemakers Goes Downhill.

If A Grasshopper Tries To Fight A Lawnmower, One May Admire His Courage But Not His Judgement.

My Dear, I Used To Think I Was Serving Humanity . . . And I Pleasured In The Thought. Then I Discovered That Humanity Does Not Want To Be Served; On The Contrary It Resents Any Attempt To Serve It. So Now I Do What Pleases Myself.

Always Tell Her She Is Beautiful, Especially If She Is Not.

Son, The Phrase Is Self-contradictory; "sense" Is Never "common".

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

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

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

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If I Had A Boy Scout I Could Make A Fire By Rubbing His Hind Legs Together.

I Counted To Ten Slowly, Using Binary Notation.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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History Does Not Record Anywhere Or At Any Time A Religion That Has Any Rational Basis.

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Never Worry About Theory As Long As The Machinery Does What It's Supposed To Do.

In A Dilemma, It Is Helpful To Change Any Variable, Then Reexamine The Problem.

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 Power To Tax, Once Conceded, Has No Limits; It Continues Until It Destroys.

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

The Shamans Are Forever Yacking About Their Snake Oil Miracles. I Prefer The Real Mccoy, A Pregnant Woman.

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

Being Privileged To Work Hard For Long Hours At Something You Think Is Worth Doing Is The Best Kind Of Play.

But, If There Ever Was A Time In History When "peace" Meant That There Was No Fighting Going On, I Have Been Unable To Find Out About It.

Every General Prohibition Creates Its Bootleggers.

There Will Always Be Survivors.

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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.

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?

I Was There To See Beautiful Naked Women. So Was Everybody Else. It's A Common Failing.

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It Is Impossible For A Man To Love His Wife Whole Heartedly Without Loving All Women Somewhat. I Suppose That The Converse Must Be True Of Women.

No Statement Should Be Believed Because It Is Made By An Authority.

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

The Police Of A State Should Never Be Stronger Or Better Armed Than The Citizenry. An Armed Citizenry, Willing To Fight, Is The Foundation Of Civil Freedom. That's A Personal Evaluation, Of Course.

God Split Himself Into A Myriad Parts That He Might Have Friends. This May Not Be True, But It Sounds Good, And Is No Sillier Than Any Other Theology.

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If We Blow Ourselves Up We Will Do It By Misapplication Of Science; If We Manage To Keep From Blowing Ourselves Up, It Will Be Through Intelligent Application Of Science.

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

The Best Thing About Space Travel Is That It Made It Possible To Go Elsewhere.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

Ability Is A Wonderful Thing, But Its Value Is Greatly Enhanced By Dependability. Ability Implies Repeatability And Accountability.

Random Chance Was Not A Sufficient Explanation Of The Universe---in Fact, Random Chance Was Not Sufficient To Explain Random Chance; The Pot Could Not Hold Itself.

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Take Big Bites. Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing.

Anything Worth Doing

The Universe Was A Silly Place At Best...but The Least Likely Explanation For It Was The No-explanation Of Random Chance, The Conceit That Abstract Somethings 'just Happened' To Be Atoms That 'just Happened' To Get Together In Ways Which 'just Happened' To Look Like Consistent Laws And Some Configurations 'just Happened' To Possess Self-awareness And That Two 'just Happened' To Be The Man From Mars And A Bald-headed Old Coot With Jubal Inside.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

Heroism' Often Consists In Keeping Your Head In An Emergency And Doing The Best You Can With What You Have Instead Of Panicking And Being Shot In The Tail. People Who Fight This Way Win More Battles Than Do Intentional Heroes; A Glory Hound Often Throws Away The Lives Of His Mates As Well As His Own.

Secrecy Is The Beginning Of Tyranny

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

The More You Love, The More You Can Love - And The More Intensely You Love.

A Pacifist Male Is A Contradiction In Terms. Most Self-described "pacifists" Are Not Pacific; They Simply Assume False Colors. When The Wind Changes, They Hoist The Jolly Roger.

But Does Man Have Any 'right' To Spread Through The Universe? Man Is What He Is, A Wild Animal With The Will To Survive, And (so Far) The Ability, Against All Competition. Unless One Accepts That, Anything One Says About Morals, War, Politics, You Name It, Is Nonsense. Correct Morals Arise From Knowing What Man Is, Not What Do-gooders And Well-meaning Old Aunt Nellies Would Like Him To Be. The Universe Will Let Us Know - Later - Whether Or Not Man Has Any "right" To Expand Through It.

I Don't See How An Article Of Clothing Can Be Indecent. A Person, Yes.

Never Pick Up A Stray Kitten . . . Unless You've Already Made Up Your Mind To Be Owned By It.

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.

In A Society In Which It Is A Moral Offense To Be Different From Your Neighbor Your Only Escape Is To Never Let Them Find Out.

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If A Thing's Worth Doing, It's Worth Overdoing. (lazarus Long)

I Was Not Offended, My Love. An Insult Is Like A Drink; It Affects One Only If Accepted. And Pride Is Too Heavy Baggage For My Journey.

Never Force An Idea; You'll Abort It If You Do.

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

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

Faith Is Intellectual Laziness.

Intellectual Laziness

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Pain Is The Basic Mechanism Built Into Us By Millions Of Years Of Evolution Which Safeguards Us By Warning When Something Threatens Our Survival.

To Assess The Intelligence Of A Committee, Divide The Iq Of Its Stupidest Member By The Number Of Members.

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

The United States Has Become A Place Where Entertainers And Professional Athletes Are Mistaken For People Of Importance.

No Matter Where Or What, There Are Makers, Takers, And Fakers.

Never Frighten A Little Man. He'll Kill You.

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I Don't Know Who Is Cranking; I'm Pleased He Doesn't Stop.

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

The Universe Never Did Make Sense; I Suspect It Was Built On Government Contract.

My Folks Tried To Make A Preacher Of Me And Missed By A Narrow Margin… I Would Have Made A Good One If I Hadn’t Fallen Into The Fatal Folly Of Reading Anything I Could Lay Hands On. With Just A Touch More Self Confidence And A Liberal Helping Of Ignorance I Could Have Been A Famous Evangelist.

Self Confidence

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

I Remembered A Time When My Grandmother Had Asked Me To Explain Television To Her - The Guts, Not The Funny Pictures. There Are Things Which Cannot Be Taught In Ten Easy Lessons, Nor Popularized For The Masses; They Take Years Of Skull Sweat. This Be Treason In An Age When Ignorance Has Come Into Its Own And One Man's Opinion Is As Good As Another's. But There It Is. As Star Says, The World Is What It Is - And Doesn't Forgive Ignorance.

Take Care Of The Cojones And The Frijoles Will Take Care Of Themselves. Try To Have Getaway Money - But Don't Be Fanatic About 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

Men Are Not Potatoes!

Never Encourage A Man To Cook Breakfast; It Cause Him To Wonder If Women Are Necessary.

There Is No Such Thing As Luck; There Is Only Adequate Or Inadequate Preparation To Cope With A Statistical Universe.

There Is An Old Song Which Asserts 'the Best Things In Life Are Free.' Not True! Utterly False! This Was The Tragic Fallacy Which Brought On The Decadence And Collapse Of The Democracies Of The Twentieth Century; Those Noble Experiments Failed Because The People Had Been Led To Believe That They Could Simply Vote For Whatever They Wanted...and Get It Without Toil, Without Sweat, Without Tears. Nothing Of Value Is Free. Even The Breath Of Life Is Purchased At Birth Only Through Gasping Effort And Pain.

A Boy Who Gets A C- In 'appreciation Of Television' Can't Be All Bad.

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

Every Time We Killed A Thousand Bugs At A Cost Of One M.i. It Was A Net Victory For The Bugs. We Were Learning, Expensively, Just How Efficient A Total Communism Can Be When Used By A People Actually Adapted To It By Evolution; The Bug Commisars Didn't Care Any More About Expending Soldiers Than We Cared About Expending Ammo. Perhaps We Could Have Figured This Out About The Bugs By Noting The Grief The Chinese Hegemony Gave The Russo-anglo-american Alliance; However The Trouble With 'lessons From History' Is That We Usually Read Them Best After Falling Flat On Our Chins.

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

It Takes Two To Create A Heaven, But Hell Can Be Accomplished By One.

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society. Manners Are Good When One May Have To Back Up His Acts With His Life.

Stupidity Cannot Be Cured. Stupidity Is The Only Universal Capital Crime; The Sentence Is Death. There Is No Appeal, And Execution Is Carried Out Automatically And Without Pity.

Always Cut The Cards...and Smile When You Lose.

Stupidity Is The Only Natural Capital Offense.

Dad Claims That Library Science Is The Foundation Of All Sciences Just As Math Is The Key -- And We Will Survive Or Founder, Depending On How Well The Librarians Do Their Jobs. Librarians Didn't Look Glamorous To Me But Maybe Dad Had Hit On A Not Very Obvious Truth.

Correct Morality Can Only Be Derived From What Man Is — Not From What Do-gooders And Well-meaning Aunt Nellies Would Like Him To Be.

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'.

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

Specialization Is For Insects... The Race Of Man? He's A Whole Other Creature.

In Ascending Order The Qualities Of Patriotism Are: 1. To Work, Fight, Or Die For Your Own Survival. 2. To Work, Fight, Or Die For Your Immediate Family. 3. To Work, Fight, Or Die For A Group, Extended Family, Tribe, Or Clan. 4. To Work, Fight, Or Die For A Group Too Large For All The Individuals To Know Each Other. 5. To Work, Fight, Or Die For A Way Of Life.

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.

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!

Unarmed Hand-to-hand Fighting Does Not Change Through The Ages; Only The Name Changes, And It Has Only One Rule: Do It First, Do It Fast, Do It Dirtiest.

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

It Seems To Me That Any Law That Is Not Enforced And Can't Be Enforced Weakens All Other Laws.

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.

Another Ingredient In A Happy Marriage: Budget The Luxuries First!

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

The More You Love, The More You Can Love--and The More Intensely You Love. Nor Is There Any Limit On How Many You Can Love. If A Person Had Time Enough, He Could Love All Of That Majority Who Are Decent And Just.

Touch Is The Most Fundamental Sense. A Baby Experiences It, All Over, Before He Is Born And Long Before He Learns To Use Sight, Hearing, Or Taste, And No Human Ever Ceases To Need It. Keep Your Children Short On Pocket Money But Long On Hugs

You're In Bad Shape When Your Emotions Force You Into Acts Which You Know Are Foolish.

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.

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

Butterflies Are Not Insects,' Captain John Sterling Said Soberly. 'they Are Self-propelled Flowers.

My Old Man Claimed That The More Complicated The Law The More Opportunity For Scoundrels.

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.

Was There Ever A Time When The Majority Was Right?

Nobody Has Ever Seen An Electron. Nor A Thought. You Can't See A Thought, You Can't Measure, Weigh, Nor Taste It- But Thoughts Are The Most Real Things In The Galaxy.

It Would Take Centuries And He Must Grow And Grow And Grow, But He Was In No Hurry--he Grokked That Eternity And The Ever-beautifully-changing Now Were Identical.

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

I Woke Up In Bed With A Man And A Cat. The Man Was A Stranger; The Cat Was Not

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.

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Edward Dahlberg

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