Background Image

...

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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Every Time We Killed

Robert A. Heinlein

...

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.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Robert A. Heinlein

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

I Counted To Ten Slowly, Using Binary Notation.

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 Correct Way To Punctuate A Sentence That States: "of Course It Is None Of My Business, But -- " Is To Place A Period After The Word "but." Don't Use Excessive Force In Supplying Such A Moron With A Period. Cutting His Throat Is Only A Momentary Pleasure And Is Bound To Get You Talked About.

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

Learn To Say No—and To Be Rude About It When Necessary. Otherwise You Will Not Have Time To Carry Out Your Duty, Or To Do Your Own Work, And Certainly No Time For Love And Happiness. The Termites Will Nibble Away Your Life And Leave None Of It For You.

Happiness And Love

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

Happiness Lies In Being Privileged To Work Hard For Long Hours In Doing Whatever You Think Is Worth Doing. One Man May Find Happiness In Supporting A Wife And Children. Another May Find It In Robbing Banks. Still Another May Labor Mightily For Years In Pursuing Pure Research With No Discernible Result. Note The Individual And Subjective Nature Of Each Case. No Two Are Alike And There Is No Reason To Expect Them To Be. Each Man Or Woman Must Find For Himself Or Herself That Occupation In Which Hard Work And Long Hours Make Him Or Her Happy.

History Is Never Surprising After It Happens.

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.

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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!

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

Note The Individual And Subjective Nature Of Each Case. No Two Are Alike And There Is No Reason To Expect Them To Be. Each Man Or Woman Must Find For Himself Or Herself That Occupation In Which Hard Work And Long Hours Make Him Or Her Happy. Contrariwise, If You Are Looking For Shorter Hours And Longer Vacations And Early Retirement, You Are In The Wrong Job. Perhaps You Need To Take Up Bank Robbing. Or Geeking In A Sideshow. Or Even Politics.

Some People Insist That "mediocre" Is Better Than "best." They Delight In Clipping Wings Because They Themselves Can't Fly. They Despise Brains Because They Have None.

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

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

In Terms Of Morals There Is No Such Thing As ‘state.’ Just Men. Individuals. Each Responsible For His Own Acts.

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

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.

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

A Slave Cannot Be Freed, Save He Do It Himself. Nor Can You Enslave A Free Man; The Very Most You Can Do Is Kill Him!

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

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

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.

If I Don’t Start Having Service I’m Going To Swap You All For A Dog And Shoot The Dog.

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

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.

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

Don't Appeal To Mercy To God The Father Up In The Sky, Little Man, Because He's Not At Home And Never Was At Home, And Couldn't Care Less. What You Do With Yourself, Whether You Are Happy Or Unhappy- Live Or Die- Is Strictly Your Business And The Universe Doesn't Care. In Fact You May Be The Universe And The Only Cause Of All Your Troubles. But, At Best, The Most You Can Hope For Is Comradeship With Comrades No More Divine (or Just As Divine) As You Are. So Quit Sniveling And Face Up To It- 'thou Art God!'

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

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.

In Handling A Stinging Insect, Move Very Slowly.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

Whenever Women Have Insisted On Absolute Equality With Men, They Have Invariably Wound Up With The Dirty End Of The Stick. What They Are And What They Can Do Makes Them Superior To Men, And Their Proper Tactic Is To Demand Special Privileges, All The Traffic Will Bear. They Should Never Settle Merely For Equality. For Women, "equality" Is A Disaster.

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

English Language

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

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

Ignorance Is Curable, Stupid Is Forever.

Once There Was A Race, Quite Unlike The Human Race - Quite. I Have No Way Of Describing To You What They Looked Like Or How They Lived, But They Had One Characteristic You Can Understand: They Were Creative. The Creating And Enjoying Of Works Of Art Was Their Occupation And Their Reason For Being.

...i Am Opposed To All Attempts To License Or Restrict The Arming Of Individuals... I Consider Such Laws A Violation Of Civil Liberty, Subversive Of Democratic Political Institutions, And Self-defeating In Their Purpose.

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

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.

You Have To Give An Editor Something To Change, Or He Gets Fretful. After He Pees In It, He Likes The Flavor Better, So He Buys It.

Women Are Amazing Creatures-sweet, Soft, Gentle, And Far More Savage Than We Are.

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.

It Is A Bad Sign When The People Of A Country Stop Identifying Themselves With The Country And Start Identifying With A Group. A Racial Group. Or A Religion. Or A Language. Anything, As Long As It Isn't The Whole Population.

How Anybody Expects A Man To Stay In Business With Every Two-bit Wowser In The Country Claiming A Veto Over What We Can Say And Can't Say And What We Can Show And What We Can't Show - It's Enough To Make You Throw Up. The Whole Principle Is Wrong; It's Like Demanding That Grown Men Live On Skim Milk Because The Baby Can't Eat Steak.

You Do Not Truly Own Anything That You Can't Carry In Both Arms At A Dead Run

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

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 Am Not Going To Talk About Religious Beliefs, But About Matters So Obvious That It Has Gone Out Of Style To Mention Them.

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.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

All Normal Human Beings Have Soi-disant Mixed-up Glands. The Race Is Divided Into Two Parts: Those Who Know This And Those Who Do Not.

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.

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

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.

Time Is Your Total Capital, And The Minutes Of Your Life Are Painfully Few.

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

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

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.

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.

I Think Perhaps Of All The Things A Police State Can Do To Its Citizens, Distorting History Is Possibly The Most Pernicious.

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.

No Storyteller Has Been Able To Dream Up Anything As Fantastically Unlikely As What Really Does Happen In This Mad Universe.

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

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.

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.

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

Never Trust Machinery More Complicated Than A Knife And Fork.

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.

Boats And Ships Are Female Because They Are Beautiful, Lovable, Expensive And Unpredictable.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

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.

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

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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.

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

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

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.

Thou Art God, I Am God. All That Groks Is God.

I Came, I Saw, She Conquered." The Original Latin Seems To Have Been Garbled.

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.

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

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.

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.

A Religion Is A Source Of Happiness And I Would Not Deprive Anyone Of Happiness. But It Is A Comfort Appropriate For The Weak, Not For The Strong--and You Are Strong. The Great Trouble With Religion--any Religion--is That The Religionist, Having Accepted Certain Propositions By Faith, Cannot Thereafter Judge These Propositions By Evidence. One May Bask At The Warm Fire Of Faith Or Choose To Live In The Bleak Uncertainty Of Reason--but One Cannot Have Both.

Budget The Luxuries First.

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.

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

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

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.

Men Are More Sentimental Than Women. It Blurs Their Thinking.

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.

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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

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'.

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

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

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

Theology Is Never Any Help; It Is Searching In A Dark Cellar At Midnight For A Black Cat That Isn't There. Theologians Can Persuade Themselves Of Anything.

Small Change Can Often Be Found Under Seat Cushions.

He Never Gave Up His Search For The Door Into Summer.

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

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.

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

At Least Once Every Human Should Have To Run For His Life, To Teach Him That Milk Does Not Come From Supermarkets, That Safety Does Not Come From Policemen, That 'news' Is Not Something That Happens To Other People. He Might Learn How His Ancestors Lived And That He Himself Is No Different--in The Crunch His Life Depends On His Agility, Alertness, And Personal Resourcefulness.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

The Basic Of All Morality Is Duty, A Concept With The Same Relation To Group That Self-interest Has To Individual.

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.

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

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

Women Will Forgive Anything. Otherwise, The Race Would Have Died Out Long Ago.

It May Be Better To Be A Live Jackal Than A Dead Lion, But It Is Better Still To Be A Live Lion. And Usually Easier.

A Prude Is A Person Who Thinks That His Own Rules Of Propriety Are Natural Laws.

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.

Democracy Is Four Wolves And A Sheep Voting On Dinner.

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

To Be Matter-of-fact About The World Is To Blunder Into Fantasy - And Dull Fantasy At That, As The Real World Is Strange And Wonderful.

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

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.

All Human Behavior, All Human Motivations, All Man’s Hopes And Fears, Were Heavily Colored And Largely Controlled By Mankind’s Tragic And Oddly Beautiful Pattern Of Reproduction.

That Old Saw About The Early Bird Just Proves That The Worm Should Have Stayed In Bed.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness, But I Don't Argue With It - Especially As I Am Rarely In A Position To Prove That It Is Mistaken. Negative Proof Is Usually Impossible.

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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

One Could Write A History Of Science In Reverse By Assembling The Solemn Pronouncements Of Highest Authority About What Could Not Be Done And Could Never Happen.

Money Is A Powerful Aphrodisiac But Flowers Work Almost As Well.

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.

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.

A Well Regulated Militia, Being Necessary To The Security Of A Free State, The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed. - Second Amendment To The Constitution An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

Libertarian Party

Assault Weapons

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.

Men Rarely If Ever Dream Up A God Superior To Themselves. Most Gods Have The Manners And Morals Of A Spoiled Child.

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

Seems To Be A Deep Instinct In Human Beings For Making Everything Compulsory That Isn't Forbidden.

Patriotism Is Not Sentimental Nonsense. Nor Something Dreamed Up By Demagogues. Patriotism Is As Necessary A Part Of Man's Evolutionary Equipment As Are His Eyes, As Useful To The Race As Eyes Are To The Individual.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

Gratitude Is A Euphemism For Resentment.

The Most Important Lesson In The Writing Trade Is That Any Manuscript Is Improved If You Cut Away The Fat.

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

...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.

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

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.

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

If You Pray Hard Enough, Water Will Run Uphill. How Hard? Why, Hard Enough To Make Water Run Uphill, Of Course!

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.

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.

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

Do This. Don't Do That. Stay Back In Line. Where's Tax Receipt? Fill Out Form. Let's See License. Submit Six Copies. Exit Only. No Left Turn. No Right Turn. Queue Up And Pay Fine. Take Back And Get Stamped. Drop Dead— But First Get Permit.

I Think That Science Fiction Has A Distinct Therapeutic Value Because All Of It Has As Its Primary Postulate That The World Does Change. I Cannot Overemphasize The Importance Of That Idea.

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

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

You Can't Conquer A Free Man; The Most You Can Do Is Kill Him.

The Faith In Which I Was Brought Up Assured Me That I Was Better Than Other People; I Was Saved, They Were Damned.... Our Hymns Were Loaded With Arrogance - Self-congratulation On How Cozy We Were With The Almighty And What A High Opinion He Had Of Us, What Hell Everybody Else Would Catch Come Judgment Day.

Congratulations

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

Unalienable Rights

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.

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.

My Old Man Says When It's Time To Be Counted, The Important Thing Is To Be Man Enough To Stand Up.

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

Price Of Freedom

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

The Trouble With Conspiracies Is That They Rot Internally.

It's Up To The Artist To Use Language That Can Be Understood, Not Hide It In Some Private Code. Most Of These Jokers Don't Even Want To Use Language You And I Know Or Can Learn . . . They Would Rather Sneer At Us And Be Smug, Because We 'fail' To See What They Are Driving At. If Indeed They Are Driving At Anything--obscurity Is Usually The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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

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.

Duty Is A Debt You Owe To Yourself To Fulfill Obligations You Have Assumed Voluntarily.

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

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

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

- 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.

Nobody Ever Wins A Lawsuit But The Lawyers.

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

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.

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.

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

Don't Tell Me Violence Doesn't Solve Anything. Look At Carthage.

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.

Trending Author

Alexander McQueen

Nuno Bettencourt

Henry A. Kissinger

Category