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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).

-Robert A. Heinlein

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But If You Didn't

Robert A. Heinlein

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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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Any Government Will Work If Authority And Responsibility Are Equal And Coordinate. This Does Not Insure “good” Government, It Simply Insures That It Will Work. But Such Governments Are Rare — Most People Want To Run Things, But Want No Part Of The Blame. This Used To Be Called The “backseat Driver” Syndrome.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

Tilting At Windmills Hurts You More Than The Windmills.

Behind Every Mystery Lies Another Mystery.

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

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

On Two Subjects The Overwhelming Majority Of People Regarded Their Own Opinions As Absolute Truth, And Sincerely Believed That Anyone Who Disagreed With Them Was Immoral, Outrageous, Sinful, Sacrilegious, Offensive, Intolerable, Stupid, Illogical, Treasonable, Actionable, Against The Public Interest, Ridiculous, And Obscene. The Two Subjects Were (of Course) Sex And Religion.

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

A Friend Who Offers Help Without Asking For Explanations Is A Treasure Beyond Price

Cute Friendship

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

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

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.

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

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

A Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

But When They Began Handing Out Doctorates For Comparative Folk Dancing And Advanced Fly-fishing, I Became Too Stink In’ Proud To Use The Title. I Won’t Touch Watered Whiskey And I Take No Pride In Watered-down Degrees.

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.

Never Do Today What You Can Put Off Till Tomorrow If Tomorrow Might Improve The Odds.

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

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

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

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.

One Of The Sanest, Surest, And Most Generous Joys Of Life Comes From Being Happy Over The Good Fortune Of Others.

Beware Of Altruism. It Is Based On Self-deception, The Root Of All Evil.

Democracy Can't Work. Mathematicians, Peasants, And Animals, That's All There Is - So Democracy, A Theory Based On The Assumption That Mathematicians And Peasants Are Equal, Can Never Work. Wisdom Is Not Additive; Its Maximum Is That Of The Wisest Man In A Given Group.

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

All Societies Are Based On Rules To Protect Pregnant Women And Young Children. All Else Is Surplusage, Excrescence, Adornment, Luxury, Or Folly Which Can - And Must - Be Dumped In Emergency To Preserve This Prime Function. As Racial Survival Is The Only Universal Morality, No Other Basic Is Possible. Attempts To Formulate A "perfect Society" On Any Foundation Other Than "women And Children First!" Is Not Only Witless, It Is Automatically Genocidal. Nevertheless, Starry-eyed Idealists (all Of Them Male) Have Tried Endlessly - And No Doubt Will Keep Trying.

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.

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

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.

Limiting The Freedom Of News 'just A Little Bit' Is In The Same Category With The Classic Example 'a Little Bit Pregnant.

An Animal So Poor In Spirit That He Won't Even Fight On His Own Behalf Is Already An Evolutionary Dead End; The Best He Can Do For His Breed Is To Crawl Off And Die, And Not Pass On His Defective Genes.

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.

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

I Took Up Writing Because I Needed Money. And I Continued To Write Because It's Safer Than Stealing And Easier Than Working.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

He Should Have Known Better Because, Early In His Learnings Under His Brother Mahmoud, He Had Discovered That Long Human Words (the Longer The Better) Were Easy, Unmistakable, And Rarely Changed Their Meanings, But Short Words Were Slippery, Unpredictable Changing Their Meanings Without Any Pattern. Or So He Seemed To Grok. Short Human Words Were Never Like A Short Martian Word - Such As Grok Which Forever Meant Exactly The Same Thing. Short Human Words Were Like Trying To Lift Water With A Knife. And This Had Been A Very Short Word.

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

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

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.

A Little More Money Won't Do You Any Good - Because Daughters Can Use Up Ten Percent More Than A Man Can Make In Any Normal Occupation, Regardless Of The Amount.

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.

Happiness Consists In Getting Enough Sleep. Just That, Nothing More.

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!

There Is No Safety This Side Of The Grave

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

Sex Should Be Friendly. Otherwise Stick To Mechanical Toys; It's More Sanitary.

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.

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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

Faith Is Intellectual Laziness.

Intellectual Laziness

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

Military Service

Sense Is Never Common.

The Purpose Of War Is To Support Your Government's Decisions By Force.

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.

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

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

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

English Is Capable Of Defining Sentiments That The Human Nervous System Is Quite Incapable Of Experiencing.

English Language

Being Right Too Soon Is Socially Unacceptable.

Of All The Nonsense That Twists The World, The Concept Of 'altruism' Is The Worst. People Do What They Want To, Every Time. If It Pains Them To Make A Choice - If The Choice Looks Like A 'sacrifice' - You Can Be Sure That It Is No Nobler Than The Discomfort Caused By Greediness... The Necessity Of Deciding Between Two Things You Want When You Can't Have Both.

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.

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

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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.

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

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

There Is No Way That Writers Can Be Tamed And Rendered Civilized Or Even Cured. The Only Solution Known To Science Is To Provide The Patient With An Isolation Room, Where He Can Endure The Acute Stages In Private And Where Food Can Be Poked In To Him With A Stick.

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.

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.

"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."

Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.

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

Most Gods Have The Manners And Morals Of A Spoiled Child.

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.

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

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.

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.

It’s Not Enough To Be Able To Lie With A Straight Face; Anybody With Enough Gall To Raise On A Busted Flush Can Do That. The First Way To Lie Artistically Is To Tell The Truth — But Not All Of It. The Second Way Involves Telling The Truth, Too, But Is Harder: Tell The Exact Truth And Maybe All Of It…but Tell It So Unconvincingly That Your Listener Is Sure You Are Lying.

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

I Had Taken A Partner Once Before—but, Damnation, No Matter How Many Times You Get Your Fingers Burned, You Have To Trust People. Otherwise You Are A Hermit In A Cave, Sleeping With One Eye Open.

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

What A Wonderful World It Is That Has Girls In It!

Paymasters Come In Only Two Sizes: One Sort Shows You Where The Book Says That You Can't Have What You've Got Coming To You; The Second Sort Digs Through The Book Until He Finds A Paragraph That Lets You Have What You Need Even If You Don't Rate It.

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!

Money Is Truthful. If A Man Speaks Of His Honor, Make Him Pay Cash.

Love Is What Still Goes On When You're Not Horny.

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

Learning . . . Is - Also An End In Itself.

Government! Three-fourths Parasitic And The Rest Stupid Fumbling - Oh, Harshaw Concluded That Man, A Social Animal, Could Not Avoid Government, Any More Than An Individual Could Escape Bondage To His Bowels. But Simply Because An Evil Was Inescapable Was No Reason To Term It "good." He Wished That Government Would Wander Off And Get Lost! (96)

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.

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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

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

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.

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

The Ethics Of Sex Is A Thorny Problem. Each Of Us Is Forced To Grope For A Solution He Can Live With - In The Face Of Preposterous, Unworkable, And Evil Code Of So-called 'morals.' Most Of Us Know The Code Is Wrong, Almost Everybody Breaks It. But We Pay Danegeld By Feeling Guilty And Giving Lip Service. Willy-nilly, The Code Rides Us, Dead And Stinking, An Albatross Around The Neck.

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

I Was No Fool; I Was Aware That When Another Man Is Too Anxious To Force Money On One, It Is Time To Examine The Cards, For There Is Almost Certainly Something Illegal, Or Dangerous, Or Both, Involved In The Matter.

Most 'scientists' Are Bottle Washers And Button Sorters.

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

My Vocal Cords Lived Their Own Life, Wild And Free.

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

I Don't Trust A Man Who Talks About Ethics When He Is Picking My Pocket. But If He Is Acting In His Own Self-interest And Says So, I Have Usually Been Able To Work Out Some Way To Do Business With Him.

Wisdom Includes Not Getting Angry Unnecessarily. The Law Ignores Trifles And The Wise Man Does, Too.

Delusions Are Often Functional. A Mother's Opinions About Her Children's Beauty, Intelligence, Goodness, Et Cetera Ad Nauseam, Keep Her From Drowning Them At Birth.

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.

Humans Hardly Ever Learn From The Experience Of Others. They Learn - When They Do, Which Isn't Often - On Their Own, The Hard Way.

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.

There Are A Dozen Different Ways Of Delivering Destruction In Impersonal Wholesale, Via Ships Or Missiles Of One Sort Or Another, Catastrophes So Widespread, So Unselective That The War Is Over Because That Nation Or Planet Has Ceased To Exist. What We Do Is Entirely Different. We Make War As Personal As A Punch In The Nose. We Can Be Selective, Applying Precisely The Required Amount Of Pressure At The Specified Point At A Designated Time. We've Never Been Told To Go Down And Kill Or Capture All Left-handed Redheads In A Particular Area, But If They Tell Us To, We Can. We Will.

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.

Democracy Is Four Wolves And A Sheep Voting On Dinner.

Violence Never Settles Anything Should Be Debated By The Ghosts Of Hitler And Stalin, With The City Fathers Of Carthage As Referees.

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

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

When A Place Gets Crowded Enough To Require Id's, Social Collapse Is Not Far Away. It Is Time To Go Elsewhere. The Best Thing About Space Travel Is That It Made It Possible To Go Elsewhere.

I Never Do Anything I Don't Want To Do. Nor Does Anyone, But In My Case I Am Always Aware Of It.

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

The Most Expensive Thing In The World Is A Second-best Military Establishment, Good But Not Good Enough To Win.

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

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

The Country And Culture Commonly Known As "america" Had Had A Badly Split Personality All Through Its History. Its Overt Laws Were Almost Always Puritanical For A People Whose Covert Behavior Tended To Be Rabelaisian; Its Major Religions Were All Apollonian In Varying Degrees---its Religious Revivals Were Often Hysterical In A Fashion Almost Dionysian.

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

In This Complex World, The Scientific Method, And The Consequences Of The Scientific Method Are Central To Everything The Human Race Is Doing And To Wherever We Are Going.

Scientific Method

The Best Things In History Are Accomplished By People Who Get Tired Of Being Shoved Around.

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

It's Better To Copulate Than Not.

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.

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

The Killer Looked Up As The Bullet Hit Him. He Looked As If He Were Puzzled By Some Strange Occurence, Being Too Freshly Dead To Be Aware Of It.

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.

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.

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.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

Roman Matrons Used To Say To Their Sons: 'come Back With Your Shield Or On It.' Later On, This Custom Declined. So Did Rome... (but Not Before It Created An Empire That Changed The World -em).

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

Specialisation Is For Insects!

Long Human Words (the Longer The Better) Were Easy, Unmistakable, And Rarely Changed Their Meanings . . . But Short Words Were Slippery, Unpredictable, Changing Their Meanings Without Any Pattern.

- 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.

Liberty Is Never Unalienable, It Must Be Redeemed Regularly With The Blood Of Patriots Or It Always Vanishes.

Unalienable Rights

A Monarch's Neck Should Always Have A Noose Around It. It Keeps Him Upright.

Its Very Variety, Subtlety, And Utterly Irrational, Idiomatic Complexity Makes It Possible To Say Things In English Which Simply Cannot Be Said In Any Other Language.

If You Happen To Be One Of The Fretful Minority Who Can Do Creative Work, Never Force An Idea; You'll Abort It If You Do. Be Patient And You'll Give Birth To It When The Time Is Ripe. Learn To Wait.

The Greatest Productive Force Is Human Selfishness.

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

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.

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.

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!

The Whole Principle (censorship) Is Wrong; It's Like Demanding That Grown Men Live On Skim Milk Because The Baby Can't Eat Steak.

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

The Intelligent Fights Only When He Must And Never For Sport.

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

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

There Are Only Five Things Really Worth Drawing; Four Of Them Are Pretty Girls And The Fifth Is Cats.

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

Was There Ever A Time When 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.

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

My Old Man Taught Me Two Things: 'mind Own Business' And 'always Cut Cards.'

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

If An Elderly Respected Expert In A Given Field Tells You That Something Can Be Done He Is Almost Certainly Right. If An Elderly Respected Expert In A Given Field Tells You That Something Is Impossible, He Is Almost Certainly Wrong.

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

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

Take Sides! Always Take Sides! You Will Sometimes Be Wrong - But The Man Who Refuses To Take Sides Must Always Be Wrong.

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

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.

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

Mind Your Own Business

Revolution Is An Art That I Pursue Rather Than A Goal I Expect To Achieve. Nor Is This A Source Of Dismay; A Lost Cause Can Be As Spiritually Satisfying As A Victory.

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.

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.

I'll Give You An Exact Definition. When The Happiness Of Another Person Becomes As Essential To Yourself As Your Own, Then The State Of Love Exists.

A Committee Is A Life Form With Six Or More Legs And No Brain.

The Early Worm Deserves The Bird.

Any Priest Or Shaman Must Be Presumed Guilty Until Proved Innocent.

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

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

Evolution Is A Process That Never Stops. Baboons Who Fail To Exhibit Moral Behavior Do Not Survive; They Wind Up As Meat For Leopards.

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

Marriage Is A Psychological Condition, Not A Civil Contract And A License. Once A Marriage Is Dead, It Is Dead, And It Begins To Stink Faster Than A Dead Fish.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

Christ Was Crucified For Preaching Without A Police Permit

Stranger In A Strange Land

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.

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