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

-Robert A. Heinlein

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I Believe That This

Robert A. Heinlein

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

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I'm Not Trying To Frighten You, But Only A Fool Makes Predictions Based On Ignorance; I Am Not That Sort Of Fool.

Nothing Of Value Is Free. Even The Breath Of Life Is Purchased At Birth Only Through Gasping Effort And Pain.

A Great Artist Can Look At An Old Woman, Portray Her Exactly As She Is ... And Force The Viewer To See The Pretty Girl She Used To Be ... More Than That, He Can Make Anyone With The Sensitivity Of An Armadillo See That This Lovely Young Girl Is Still Alive

Physicians Had Gone To Their Graves Calling Pasteur A Liar, A Fool, Or Worse—without Examining Evidence Which Their “common Sense” Told Them Was Impossible.

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.

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

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

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

Nursing Does Not Diminish The Beauty Of A Woman's Breasts; It Enhances Their Charm By Making Them Look Lived In And Happy.

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.

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.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

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

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

There Is No Such Thing As 'social Gambling.' Either You Are There To Cut The Other Bloke's Heart Out And Eat It -- Or You're A Sucker. If You Don't Like This Choice -- Don't Gamble.

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

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

Everybody Lies About Sex.

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

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

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

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.

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

High Frontier Places A Bullet-proof Vest On Our Bare Chest. High Frontier Is As Non-aggressive As A Bullet-proof Vest. There Is No Way To Kill Anyone With High Frontier - All That High Frontier Can Do Is To Keep Others From Killing Us.

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

There Has Grown Up In The Minds Of Certain Groups In This Country The Notion That Because A Man Or Corporation Has Made A Profit Out Of The Public For A Number Of Years, The Government And The Courts Are Charged With The Duty Of Guaranteeing Such Profit In The Future, Even In The Face Of Changing Circumstances And Contrary Public Interest. This Strange Doctrine Is Not Supported By Statute Nor Common Law. Neither Individuals Nor Corporations Have Any Right To Come Into Court And Ask That The Clock Of History Be Stopped, Or Turned Back...

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

Social Responsibility Above The Level Of Family, Or At Most Of Tribe, Requires Imagination-- Devotion, Loyalty, All The Higher Virtues -- Which A Man Must Develop Himself; If He Has Them Forced Down Him, He Will Vomit Them Out.

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.

The Moral Difference Between A Soldier And A Civilian Is That The Soldier Accepts Personal Responsibility For The Safety Of The Body Politic Of Which He Is A Member. The Civilian Does Not.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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!

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!

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

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.

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

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

Anyone Can See A Forest Fire. Skill Lies In Sniffing The First Smoke.

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

Most People Can't Think, Most Of The Remainder Won't Think, And The Small Fraction Who Do Think Mostly Can't Do It Very Well.

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

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.

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?

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

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

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.

- 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.

Anything Which Is Physically Possible Can Always Be Made Financially Possible; Money Is A Bugaboo Of Small Minds.

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

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.

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

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

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

...a Book Need Never Die And Should Not Be Killed; Books Were The Immortal Part Of Man.

I Believe In My Neighbors. I Know Their Faults And I Know That Their Virtues Far Outweigh Their Faults.

...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.

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.

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 Society That Gets Rid Of All Its Troublemakers Goes Downhill.

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

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.

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.

On The Steps Of The Federal Building We Ran Into Carmencita Ibanez, A Classmate Of Ours And One Of The Nice Things About Being A Member Of A Race With Two Sexes.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

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

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

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.

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)

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

Fulfillment In Life Is Loving A Good Woman And Killing A Bad Man.

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

With Eternity To Draw On There Could Be No Reason For Hurrying - 'hurry' Was Not A Concept In Martian.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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

In Past History Popularly Elected Governments Have Been No Better And Sometimes Far Worse Than Overt Tyrannies.

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

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.

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

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

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.

"peace" Is A Condition In Which No Civilian Pays Any Attention To Military Casualties Which Do Not Achieve Page-one, Lead-story Prominence-unless That Civilian Is A Close Relative Of One Of The Casualties. 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.

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

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

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.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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

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

...revolutions Are Not Won By Enlisting The Masses. Revolution Is A Science For The Few Who Are Competent To Practice It. It Depends On Correct Organisation And Above All, On Communications.

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

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

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.

Those Who Refuse To Support And Defend The State Have No Claim To Protection By That State. Killing An Anarchist Or A Pacifist Should Not Be Considered "murder" In A Legalistic Sense. The Offense Against The State, If Any, Should Be "using Deadly Weapons Within City Limits," Or "creating A Traffic Hazard," Or Other Misdemeanor.

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.

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

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

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

A Fool Cannot Be Protected From His Folly. If You Attempt To Do So, You Will Not Only Arouse His Animosity But Also You Will Be Attempting To Deprive Him Of Whatever Benefit He Is Capable Of Deriving From Experience. Never Attempt To Teach A Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

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

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.

Television Leaves No External Scars.

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.

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

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.

I Don't See Why Human People Make Such A Heavy Trip Out Of Sex. It Isn't Anything Complex, It Is Simply The Best Thing In Life, Even Better Than Food.

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.

Violence, Naked Force, Has Settled More Issues In History Than Has Any Other Factor.

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.

A Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

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

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

There Are Perhaps 5% Of The Population That Simply Can't Think. There Are Another 5% Who Can, And Do. The Remaining 90% Can Think, But Don't

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Take Big Bites. Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing.

Anything Worth Doing

We Have Our Hands, We Have Our Brains, We Have The Challenge All Around Us, And We Have Within (from Whatever Source) The Will To Strive. That Is Enough; There Is No Need To Assert 'belief' In That Which We Do Not, As Yet, Know.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

Working Together

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

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!

[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.

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

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

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

The Average Bloke . . . Hates And Fears All Freedom, Not Only For Others But For Himself, And Stamps It Out Wherever Possible.

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

I've Never Understood How God Could Expect His Creatures To Pick The One True Religion By Faith-it Strikes Me As A Sloppy Way To Run A Universe.

You Can Go Wrong By Being Too Skeptical As Readily As By Being Too Trusting.

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.

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.

Audacity, Always Audacity - Soundest Principal Of Strategy.

Reason Is Poor Propaganda When Opposed By The Yammering, Unceasing Lies Of Shrewd And Evil And Self-serving Men.

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

Government! Three Fourths Parasitic And The Other Fourth Stupid Fumbling.

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

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.

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

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

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

By The Laws Of Statistics We Could Probably Approximate Just How Unlikely It Is That It Would Happen. But People Forget Especially Those Who Ought To Know Better, Such As Yourself That While The Laws Of Statistics Tell You How Unlikely A Particular Coincidence Is, They State Just As Firmly That Coincidences Do Happen.

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

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

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

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.

An Armed Man Need Not Fight.

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

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

There 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.

Love Is That Condition In Which The Happiness Of Another Person Is Essential To Your Own... Jealousy Is A Disease, Love Is A Healthy Condition. The Immature Mind Often Mistakes One For The Other, Or Assumes That The Greater The Love, The Greater The Jealousy.

When You Vote, You Are Exercising Political Authority, You're Using Force. And Force, My Friends, Is Violence. The Supreme Authority From Which All Other Authorities Are Derived.

To Get Anywhere, Or Even To Live A Long Time, A Man Has To Guess, And Guess Right, Over And Over Again, Without Enough Data For A Logical Answer.

Learning Isn't A Means To An End; It Is An End In Itself.

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

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.

People Who Are Busy And Happy Don't Write Diaries; They Are Too Busy Living.

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

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.

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.

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

The Golden Sunshine Of Italy Congealed Into Tears. Here's To Alcoholic Brotherhood ... Much More Suited To The Frail Human Soul, If Any, Than Any Other Sort.

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

Of All The Creatures On This Planet None Is More Dangerous Than A Human Being.

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

Figure Out For Yourself What You Want To Be Really Good At, Know That You'll Never Really Satisfy Yourself That You've Made It, And Accept That That's Okay.

The Trouble With Conspiracies Is That They Rot Internally.

Men Are Not Potatoes!

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

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

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

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

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

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.

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.

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