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Around The Time Of The Terran Caesar Augustus, A Martian Artist Had Been Composing A Work Of Art. It Could Have Been Called A Poem, A Musical Opus, Or A Philosophical Treatise; It Was A Series Of Emotions Arranged In Tragic, Logical Necessity. Since It Could Be Experienced By A Human Only In The Sense In Which A Man Blind From Birth Might Have A Sunset Explained To Him, It Does Not Matter Which Category It Be Assigned.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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Around The Time Of

Robert A. Heinlein

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Around The Time Of The Terran Caesar Augustus, A Martian Artist Had Been Composing A Work Of Art. It Could Have Been Called A Poem, A Musical Opus, Or A Philosophical Treatise; It Was A Series Of Emotions Arranged In Tragic, Logical Necessity. Since It Could Be Experienced By A Human Only In The Sense In Which A Man Blind From Birth Might Have A Sunset Explained To Him, It Does Not Matter Which Category It Be Assigned.

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I Think The Major Problem In Growing Up Is To Become Sophisticated Without Becoming Cynical.

A Committee Is The Only Known Form Of Life With A Hundred Bellies And No Brain.

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

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

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 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

Humoring Them Costs Nothing And Adds To Happiness In A World In Which Happiness Is Always In Short Supply.

Talking With A Martian Is Like Talking With An Echo. You Don't Get Argument But You Don't Get Results.

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

In The Absence Of Clearly-defined Goals, We Become Strangely Loyal To Performing Daily Trivia Until Ultimately We Become Enslaved By It.

Once You Get To Earth Orbit, You're Halfway To Anywhere In The Solar System.

But I Contend That The Disgusting Behavior Of Many Of Their Alleged 'holy Men' Relieves Us Of Any Intellectual Obligation To Take The Stuff Seriously. No Amount Of Sanctimonious Rationalization Can Make Such Behavior Anything But Pathological.

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.

The Hardest Part About Gaining Any New Idea Is Sweeping Out The False Idea Occupying That Niche. As Long As That Niche Is Occupied, Evidence And Proof And Logical Demonstration Get Nowhere. But Once The Niche Is Emptied Of The Wrong Idea That Has Been Filling It:; Once You Can Honestly Say, "i Don't Know", Then It Becomes Possible To Get At The Truth.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

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

When The Citizens Of A Nation Will No Longer Volunteer To Defend It, Then It Is Probably Not Worth Saving. No Nation Has The Right To Survive With Conscript Troops, And In The Long Run, No Nation Ever Has.

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.

Nor Would Anybody Suspect. If Was One Thing All People Took For Granted, Was Conviction That If You Feed Honest Figures Into A Computer, Honest Figures Come Out. Never Doubted It Myself Till I Met A Computer With A Sense Of Humor.

There Comes A Time In The Life Of Every Human When He Or She Must Decide To Risk ‘his Life, His Fortune And His Sacred Honor’ On An Outcome Dubious. Those Who Fail The Challenge Are Merely Overgrown Children, Can Never Be Anything Else.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

Nothing Of Value Is Free. Even The Breath Of Life Is Purchased At Birth Only Through Gasping Effort And Pain... The Best Things In Life Are Beyond Money; Their Price Is Agony And Sweat And Devotion... And The Price Demanded For The Most Precious Of All Things In Life Is Life Itself--ultimate Cost For Perfect Value

Death Isn't Funny." "then Why Are There So Many Jokes About Death? Jill, With Us — Us Humans — Death Is So Sad That We Must Laugh At It.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

Any Group Is Weaker Than A Man Alone Unless They Are Perfectly Trained To Work Together.

Working Together

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

Working Because You Want To Is The Best Sort Of Play.

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

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

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.

The 3-legged Stool Of Understanding Is Held Up By History, Languages, And Mathematics. Equipped With Those Three You Can Learn Anything You Want To Learn. But If You Lack Any One Of Them You Are Just Another Ignorant Peasant With Dung On Your Boots.

One Might Define Adulthood As The Age At Which A Person Learns That He Must Die ...and Accepts His Sentence Undismayed.

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.

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

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

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

Stupidity Is The Only Natural Capital Offense.

Victory In Defeat, There Is None Higher. She Didn't Give Up, Ben; She's Still Trying To Lift That Stone After It Has Crushed Her. She's A Father Working While Cancer Eats Away His Insides, To Bring Home One More Pay Check. She's A Twelve-year-old Trying To Mother Her Brothers And Sisters Because Mama Had To Go To Heaven. She's A Switchboard Operator Sticking To Her Post While Smoke Chokes Her And Fire Cuts Off Her Escape. She's All The Unsung Heroes Who Couldn't Make It But Never Quit.

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

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.

Television Leaves No External Scars.

Make Money, Lose Money - Who Cares? The Idea Is To Enjoy It.

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

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.

I Scrolled On Down To The Obituaries. I Usually Read The Obituaries First As There Is Always The Happy Chance That One Of Them Will Make My Day.

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

Girls Are Simply Wonderful. Just To Stand On A Corner And Watch Them Going Past Is Delightful. They Don't Walk. At Least Not What We Do When We Walk. I Don't Know How To Describe It, But It's Much More Complex And Utterly Delightful. They Don't Move Just Their Feet; Everything Moves And In Different Directions . . . And All Of It Graceful.

Gratitude Is A Euphemism For Resentment.

Democracy's Worst Fault Is That Its Leaders Are Likely To Reflect The Faults And Virtues Of Their Constituents.

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

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

I Am Free, No Matter What Rules Surround Me. If I Find Them Tolerable, I Tolerate Them; If I Find Them Too Obnoxious, I Break Them. I Am Free Because I Know That I Alone Am Morally Responsible For Everything I Do.

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

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

"i've Found Out Why People Laugh. They Laugh Because It Hurts So Much... Because It's The Only Thing That'll Make It Stop Hurting" ... "but That's Not All People Laugh At." "isn't It? Perhaps I Don't Grok All Its Fullness Yet. But Find Me Something That Really Makes You Laugh Sweetheart... A Joke, Or Anything Else- But Something That Gave You A A Real Belly Laugh, Not A Smile. Then We'll See If There Isn't A Wrongness Wasn't There." He Thought. "i Grok When Apes Learn To Laugh, They'll Be People."

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

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

A Brute Kills For Pleasure. A Fool Kills From Hate.

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.

I've Found Out Why People Laugh. They Laugh Because It Hurts- Because It's The Only Thing That'll Make It Stop Hurting... I Had Been Told That A 'funny' Thing Is A Thing Of Goodness. It Isn't... The Goodness Is In The Laughing. I Grok It Is A Bravery- And A Sharing- Against Pain And Sorrow And Defeat.

Under What Circumstances Is It Moral For A Group To Do That Which Is Not Moral For A Member Of That Group To Do Alone?

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

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

I Also Think There Are Prices Too High To Pay To Save The United States. Conscription Is One Of Them. Conscription Is Slavery, And I Don't Think That Any People Or Nation Has A Right To Save Itself At The Price Of Slavery For Anyone, No Matter What Name It Is Called. We Have Had The Draft For Twenty Years Now; I Think This Is Shameful. If A Country Can't Save Itself Through The Volunteer Service Of Its Own Free People, Then I Say: Let The Damned Thing Go Down The Drain!

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

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.

There Are No Dangerous Weapons; There Are Only Dangerous Men.

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

Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.

Whores Perform The Same Function As Priests, But Far More Thoroughly.

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

I Believe That This Hairless Embryo With The Aching, Oversize Brain Case And The Opposable Thumb, This Animal Barely Up From The Apes, Will Endure --will Endure Longer Than His Home Planet, Will Spread Out To The Other Planets, To The Stars, And Beyond, Carrying With Him His Honesty, His Insatiable Curiosity, His Unlimited Courage --and His Noble Essential Decency. This I Believe With All My Heart.

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

There Ought Not To Be Anything In The Whole Universe That Man Can't Poke His Nose Into-that's The Way We're Built And I Assume That There's Some Reason For That.

There Was One Field In Which Man Was Unsurpassed; He Showed Unlimited Ingenuity In Devising Bigger And More Efficient Ways To Kill Off, Enslave, Harass, And In All Ways Make An Unbearable Nuisance Of Himself To Himself.

The Marks Won't Listen If It's Free.

Political Tags - Such As Royalist, Communist, Democrat, Populist, Fascist, Liberal, Conservative, And So Forth - Are Never Basic Criteria. The Human Race Divides Politically Into Those Who Want People To Be Controlled And Those Who Have No Such Desire.

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.

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

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.

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

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

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.

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.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially. When They Are Growing Up, They Are Nerve Ends All Over, And Resent (quite Properly) Any Invasion Of Their Privacy. Oh, Sure, They'll Make Mistakes - But That's Their Business, Not Yours. (you Made Your Own Mistakes, Did You Not?)

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

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes. Keep This In Mind; It May Offer A Way To Make Him Your Friend. If Not, You Can Kill Him Without Hate — And Quickly.

Take Big Bites. Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing.

Anything Worth Doing

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.

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

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

Death Is The Lot Of Us All, And The Only Way That The Human Race Has Ever Conquered Death Is By Treating It With Contempt. By Living Every Golden Minute As If One Had All Eternity.

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth - A 6 Foot Plot Above Them.

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.

Liberty Is Never Unalienable; It Must Be Redeemed Regularly With The Blood Of Patriots Or It Always Vanishes. Of All The So-called Natural Human Rights That Have Ever Been Invented, Liberty Is Least Likely To Be Cheap And Is Never Free Of Cost.

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

A Poet Who Reads His Verse In Public May Have Other Nasty Habits.

It Is Possible That The Percentage Of Honest And Competent Whores Is Higher Than That Of Plumbers And Much Higher Than That Of Lawyers. And Enormously Higher Than That Of Professors.

A Zygote Is A Gamete's Way Of Producing More Gametes. This May Be The Purpose Of The Universe.

The Less Respect An Older Person Deserves The More Certain He Is To Demand It From Anyone Younger.

Get A Shot Off Fast. This Upsets Him Long Enough To Let You Make Your Second Shot Perfect.

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

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.

Faith Is Intellectual Laziness.

Intellectual Laziness

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

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.

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.

A Dying Culture Invariably Exhibits Personal Rudeness. Bad Manners. Lack Of Consideration For Others In Minor Matters. A Loss Of Politeness, Of Gentle Manners, Is More Significant Than Is A Riot.

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.

Sin Is Cruelty And Injustice, All Else Is Peccadillo. Oh, A Sense Of Sin Comes From Violating The Customs Of Your Tribe. But Breaking Custom Is Not Sin Even When It Feels So; Sin Is Wronging Another Person.

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.

If You've Got The Truth You Can Demonstrate It. Talking Doesn't Prove It.

The Difference Between Science And The Fuzzy Subjects Is That Science Requires Reasoning While Those Other Subjects Merely Require Scholarship.

Why Do Some People Act As If Making Money Offended Their Delicate Minds? I Am Out For A Legitimate Profit, And Not Ashamed Of It; The Fact That People Will Pay Money For My Goods And Services Shows That My Work Is Useful.

A Touchstone To Determine The Actual Worth Of An "intellectual" - Find Out How He Feels About Astrology.

To Stay Young Requires Unceasing Cultivation Of The Ability To Unlearn Old Falsehoods.

Secrecy Is The Keystone To All Tyranny. Not Force, But Secrecy And Censorship. When Any Government Or Church For That Matter, Undertakes To Say To Its Subjects, "this You May Not Read, This You Must Not Know," The End Result Is Tyranny And Oppression, No Matter How Holy The Motives. Mighty Little Force Is Needed To Control A Man Who Has Been Hoodwinked In This Fashion; Contrariwise, No Amount Of Force Can Control A Free Man, Whose Mind Is Free. No, Not The Rack Nor The Atomic Bomb, Not Anything. You Can't Conquer A Free Man; The Most You Can Do Is Kill Him.

The Brown Monkey's Instinct To Kill Is Correct; Such Men Are Dangerous To All Monkey Customs.

You Have Attributed Conditions To Villainy That Simply Result From Stupidity.

The Second Best Thing About Space Travel Is That The Distances Involved Make War Very Difficult, Usually Impractical, And Almost Always Unnecessary. This Is Probably A Loss For Most People, Since War Is Our Race's Most Popular Diversion, One Which Gives Purpose And Color To Dull And Stupid Lives. But It Is A Great Boon To The Intelligent Man Who Fights Only When He Must-never For Sport.

If Men Were The Automatons That Behaviorists Claim They Are, The Behaviorist Psychologists Could Not Have Invented The Amazing Nonsense Called 'behaviorist Psychology.'

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

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

Being Generous Is Inborn; Being Altruistic Is A Learned Perversity. No Resemblance --

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

Thinking Doesn't Pay. Just Makes You Discontented With What You See Around You.

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

I'm Always Suspicious Of Disinterested Interest.

Pacifism Is A Shifty Doctrine Under Which A Man Accepts The Benefits Of The Social Group Without Being Willing To Pay; And Claims A Halo For His Dishonesty.

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.

How Can You Argue With A Woman Who Won't?

Some Things, The More You Understand The More You Loathe Them.

Once Upon A Time There Was A Martian Named Valentine Michael Smith.

Stranger In A Strange Land

Teaching Causes People To Go Into Situations From Which They Cannot Escape, Except By Thinking. Do Not Handicap Children By Making Their Lives Easy.

We Learned Not To Waste Ammo Even On Warriors Except In Self-protection

All Men Are Created Unequal.

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

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

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

A Competent And Self-confident Person Is Incapable Of Jealousy In Anything. Jealousy Is Invariably A Symptom Of Neurotic Insecurity.

People Who Go Broke In A Big Way Never Miss Any Meals. It Is The Poor Jerk Who Is Shy A Half Slug Who Must Tighten His Belt.

Audacity, Always Audacity - Soundest Principal Of Strategy.

The Lessons Of History Teach Us - If The Lessons Of History Teach Us Anything - That Nobody Learns The Lessons That History Teaches Us.

We Each Have A Moral Obligation To Conserve And Preserve Beauty In This World; There Is None To Waste.

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

I Am Free, No Matter What Rules Surround Me. If I Find Them Tolerable, I Tolerate Them; If I Find Them Too Obnoxious, I Break Them.

If Satan Should Ever Replace God He Would Find It Necessary To Assume The Attributes Of Divinity.

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.

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.

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

Don't Ever Become A Pessimist... A Pessimist Is Correct Oftener Than An Optimist, But An Optimist Has More Fun, And Neither Can Stop The March Of Events.

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

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

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.

A Fake Fortuneteller Can Be Tolerated. But An Authentic Soothsayer Should Be Shot On Sight. Cassandra Did Not Get Half The Kicking Around She Deserved.

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

Big Money Isn't Hard To Come By. All It Costs Is A Lifetime Of Single-minded Devotion To Acquiring It And Making It Grow Into More Money.

I Believe That Almost All Politicians Are Honest. For Every Bribed Alderman There Are Hundreds Of Politicians, Low Paid Or Not Paid At All, Doing Their Level Best Without Thanks Or Glory To Make Our System Work. If This Were Not True, We Would Never Have Gotten Past The Thirteen Colonies.

But, Do You Know, Once You Get Used To It's Rather Cute. I Mean, If A Girl Looks Alright To Start With, She Still Looks Alright With Her Head Smooth.

Art Is The Process Of Evoking Pity And Terror, Which Is Not Abstract At All But Very Human. What The Self-styled Modern Artists Are Doing Is A Sort Of Unemotional Pseudointellectual Masturbation . . . Whereas Creative Art Is More Like Intercourse, In Which The Artist Must Seduce -- Render Emotional -- His Audience, Each Time.

Jill: 'i Don't Pay Attention To Politics.' Ben: 'you Should. It's Barely Less Important Than Your Own Heart Beat.' Jill: 'i Don't Pay Attention To That, Either.'

If A Country Can't Save Itself Through The Volunteer Service Of Its Own Free People, Then I Say : Let The Damned Thing Go Down The Drain!

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

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.

Take Sex Away From People. Make It Forbidden, Evil. Limit It To Ritualistic Breeding. Force It To Back Up Into Suppressed Sadism. Then Hand The People A Scapegoat To Hate. Let Them Kill A Scapegoat Occasionally For Cathartic Release. The Mechanism Is Ages Old. Tyrants Used It Centuries Before The Word "psychology" Was Ever Invented. It Works, Too.

A Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

He's As Weird As Snake's Suspenders But Sweet As A Stolen Kiss, Too.

Customs Tell A Man Who He Is, Where He Belongs, What He Must Do. Better Illogical Customs Than None; Men Cannot Live Together Without Them.

Most Neuroses And Some Psychoses Can Be Traced To The Unnecessary And Unhealthy Habit Of Daily Wallowing In The Troubles And Sins Of Five Billion Strangers.

His Was Not A Small Mind Bothered By Logic And Consistency.

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

History Does Not Record Anywhere At Any Time A Religion That Has Any Rational Basis. Religion Is A Crutch For People Not Strong Enough To Stand Up To The Unknown Without Help. But, Like Dandruff, Most People Do Have A Religion And Spend Time And Money On It And Seem To Derive Considerable Pleasure From Fiddling With It.

It Was Equally Imperative That This Chain Of Reactions Should Always Tend To Dampen, To Die Out. It Must Not Build Up, Or The Uranium Mass Would Explode Within A Time Interval Too Short To Be Measured By Any Means Whatsoever. Nor Would There Be Anyone Left To Measure It.

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

The Right To Figure Things Out For Yourself Is The Only True Freedom Everyone Shares. Go Use It.

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

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

Women Talk When They Want To. Or Don't.

Widows Are Far Better Than Brides. They Don't Tell, They Won't Yell, They Don't Swell, They Rarely Smell, And They're Grateful As Hell.

What We Think Of As 'physical Beauty' Is Almost Certainly A Tag For A Complex Of Useful Survival Characteristics. Smartness - Intelligence - Among Them.

Place Your Clothes And Weapons Where You Can Find Them In The Dark.

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

His Older Self Had Taught His Younger Self A Language Which The Older Self Knew Because The Younger Self, After Being Taught, Grew Up To Be The Older Self And Was, Therefore, Capable Of Teaching.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

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

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

The Profession Of Shaman Has Many Advantages. It Offers High Status With A Safe Livelihood Free Of Work In The Dreary, Sweaty Sense. In Most Societies It Offers Legal Privileges And Immunities Not Granted To Other Men. But It Is Hard To See How A Man Who Has Been Given A Mandate From On High To Spread Tidings Of Joy To All Mankind Can Be Seriously Interested In Taking Up A Collection To Pay His Salary; It Causes One To Suspect That The Shaman Is On The Moral Level Of Any Other Con Man. But It Is A Lovely Work If You Can Stomach It.

Citizenship Is An Attitude, A State Of Mind, An Emotional Conviction That The Whole Is Greater Than The Part...and That The Part Should Be Humbly Proud To Sacrifice Itself That The Whole May Live.

You Can Have Peace. Or You Can Have Freedom. Don't Ever Count On Having Both At Once.

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).

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.

I Would Say That My Position Is Not Too Far From That Of Ayn Rand's; That I Would Like To See Government Reduced To No More Than Internal Police And Courts, External Armed Forces - With The Other Matters Handled Otherwise. I'm Sick Of The Way Government Sticks Its Nose In Everything, Now.

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

Of All The Strange 'crimes' That Human Beings Have Legislated Out Of Nothing, 'blasphemy' Is The Most Amazing -- With 'obscenity' And 'indecent Exposure' Fighting It Out For Second And Third Place.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

Most 'scientists' Are Bottle Washers And Button Sorters.

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Frank Moore Colby

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