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

-Robert A. Heinlein

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God Is Omnipotent, Omniscient,

Robert A. Heinlein

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

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

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

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.

'savage' Describes A Cultural Condition, Not A Degree Of Intelligence.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Everybody Lies About Sex.

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.

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

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

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

Brainpower Is The Scarcest Commodity And The Only One Of Real Value.

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

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

The Trouble With Conspiracies Is That They Rot Internally.

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

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

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

When I Don’t Understand, I Have An Unbearable Itch To Know Why.

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

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

Never Attribute To Malice That Which Can Be Adequately Explained By Stupidity. Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.

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

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

When You're Rich, You Don't Have Friends; You Just Have Endless Acquaintances.

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

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

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.

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.

Do Not Confuse "duty" With What Other People Expect Of You; They Are Utterly Different. Duty Is A Debt You Owe To Yourself To Fulfill Obligations You Have Assumed Voluntarily. Paying That Debt Can Entail Anything From Years Of Patient Work To Instant Willingness To Die. Difficult It May Be, But The Reward Is Self-respect.

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

You Can Sway A Thousand Men By Appealing To Their Prejudices Quicker Than You Can Convince One Man By Logic.

You Were Probably Educated In The Conventional Economic Theories Of Your Period Which Were Magnificent And Most Ingenious, But--if You Will Pardon My Saying So--all Wrong.

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.

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

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.

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

Ignorance Is Curable, Stupid Is Forever.

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

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.

...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.

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

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

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.

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

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

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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

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

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

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.

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 Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

Most 'scientists' Are Bottle Washers And Button Sorters.

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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

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.

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.

There Were Many, Many Times Thereafter That Don Regretted Having Enlisted - But So Has Every Man Who Ever Volunteered For Military Service.

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

Working Together

Since Survival Is The Sine Qua Non, I Now Define The "moral Behavior" As "behavior That Tends Toward Survival".

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.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

Be Wary Of Strong Drink. It Can Make You Shoot At Tax Collectors... And Miss.

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

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

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

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

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.

Minimize Your Therbligs Until It Becomes Automatic; This Doubles Your Effective Lifetime - And Thereby Gives Time To Enjoy Butterflies And Kittens And Rainbows.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Most Ridiculous Concept Ever Perpetrated By Homo Sapiens Is That The Lord God Of Creation, Shaper And Ruler Of The Universes, Wants The Saccharine Adoration Of His Creations, That He Can Be Persuaded By Their Prayers, And Becomes Petulant If He Does Not Receive This Flattery. Yet This Ridiculous Notion, Without One Real Shred Of Evidence To Bolster It, Has Gone On To Found One Of The Oldest, Largest And Least Productive Industries In History.

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

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.

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

Always Store Beer In A Dark Place.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

Certain Types Of Loudmouthism Should Be A Capital Offense Among Decent People.

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

When The Need Arises - And It Does - You Must Be Able To Shoot Your Own Dog. Don't Farm It Out — That Doesn't Make It Nicer, It Makes It Worse.

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

Specialisation Is For Insects!

- 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.

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

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

Nowhere On Earth Was Sex So Vigorously Suppressed As In America--and Nowhere Else Was There Such A Deep Interest In It.

"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."

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

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).

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

All Men Are Created Unequal.

Television Leaves No External Scars.

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

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.

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

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.'

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

You Obviously Don't Know What An Old Man Of The Sea Great Wealth Is. It Is Not A Fat Purse And Time To Spend It. Its Owner Finds Himself Beset On Every Side, At Every Hour, Wherever He Goes, By Persistent Pleaders, Like Beggars In Bombay, Each Demanding That He Invest Or Give Away Part Of His Wealth. He Becomes Suspicious Of Honest Friendship--indeed Honest Friendship Is Rarely Offered Him; Those Who Could Have Been His Friends Are Too Fastidious To Be Jostled By Beggars, Too Proud To Risk Being Mistaken For One.

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

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

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.

One Man's 'magic' Is Another Man's Engineering. 'supernatural' Is A Null Word.

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.

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.

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

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

Sovereign," Like "love," Means Anything You Want It To Mean; It's A Word In Dictionary Between "sober" And "sozzled.

Courage Is The Complement Of Fear. A Man Who Is Fearless Cannot Be Courageous. [he Is Also A Fool.]

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).

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

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.

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.

Men Are Expendable; Women And Children Are Not. A Tribe Or A Nation Can Lose A High Percentage Of Its Men And Still Pick Up The Pieces And Go On ... As Long As The Women And Children Are Saved.

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

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

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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

From My Point Of View, A Great Deal Of Openly Expressed Piety Is Insufferable Conceit.

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

It May Take Endless Wars And Unbearable Population Pressure To Force-feed A Technology To The Point Where It Can Cope With Space. In The Universe, Space Travel May Be The Normal Birth Pangs Of An Otherwise Dying Race. A Test. Some Races Pass, Some Fail.

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

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

Sex Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

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

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

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

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

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

The Stone Trembled And Threw Herself Outward Bound, Toward Saturn. In Her Train Followed Hundreds And Thousands And Hundreds Of Thousands Of Thousands Of Restless, Rolling Stones . . . To Saturn . . . To Uranus, To Pluto . . . Rolling On Out To The Stars . . . Outward Bound To The Ends Of The Universe.

A Man Who Marries At My Age Isn't Taking A Wife, He's Indenturing A Nurse.

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.

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

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

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.

Behind Every Mystery Lies Another Mystery.

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

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

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

Mind Your Own Business

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

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.

How You Behave Toward Cats Here Below Determines Your Status In Heaven.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

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

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.

There Is No Way That Writers Can Be Tamed And Rendered Civilized. Or Even Cured.

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.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

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

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

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

Luck Is A Tag Given By The Mediocre To Account For The Accomplishments Of Genius.

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

Nothing Gives Life More Zest That Running For Your Life.

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

And Suddenly I Knew I Was People And Could Not Stop Laughing.

The Worst That Can Possibly Have Happened To Him Is Death And That We Are All In For---if Not This Morning, Then In Days, Or Weeks, Or Years At Most.

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