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I See The Beauty Of Mike's Attempt To Devise An Ideal Ethic And Applaud His Recognition That Such Must Start By Junking The Present Sexual Code And Starting Fresh. Most Philosophers Haven't The Courage For This; They Swallow The Basics Of The Present Code--monogamy, Family Pattern, Continence, Body Taboos, Conventional Restrictions On Intercourse, And So Forth--then Fiddle With Details...even Such Piffle As Discussing Whether The Female Breast Is An Obscene Sight! (p.365)

-Robert A. Heinlein

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I See The Beauty

Robert A. Heinlein

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I See The Beauty Of Mike's Attempt To Devise An Ideal Ethic And Applaud His Recognition That Such Must Start By Junking The Present Sexual Code And Starting Fresh. Most Philosophers Haven't The Courage For This; They Swallow The Basics Of The Present Code--monogamy, Family Pattern, Continence, Body Taboos, Conventional Restrictions On Intercourse, And So Forth--then Fiddle With Details...even Such Piffle As Discussing Whether The Female Breast Is An Obscene Sight! (p.365)

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The Early Worm Deserves The Bird.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

No Intelligent Man Has Any Respect For An Unjust Law.

The Only Thing Privacy Laws Accomplish Is Making The Bugs Smaller.

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

Stupidity Cannot Be Cured. Stupidity Is The Only Universal Capital Crime; The Sentence Is Death. There Is No Appeal, And Execution Is Carried Out Automatically And Without Pity.

Everybody Lies About Sex.

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

I Have Spent Too Much Of My Life Opening Doors For Cats—i Once Calculated That, Since The Dawn Of Civilization, Nine Hundred And Seventy-eight Man-centuries Have Been Used Up That Way. I Could Show You Figures.

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

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

All Men Are Created Unequal.

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.

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

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

Sex, Whatever Else It Is, Is An Athletic Skill. The More You Practice, The More You Can, The More You Want To, The More You Enjoy It, The Less It Tires You.

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

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.

Under Our System Every Voter And Officeholder Is A Man Who Has Demonstrated Through Voluntary And Difficult Service That He Places The Welfare Of The Group Ahead Of Personal Advantage.

The Supreme Irony Of Life Is That Hardly Anyone Gets Out Of It Alive.

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

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

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.

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

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

Then I Glanced At The Ring On My Finger. The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever And Ever. I Know Where I Came From—but Where Did All You Zombies Come From? I Felt A Headache Coming On, But A Headache Powder Is One Thing I Do Not Take. I Did Once—and You All Went Away. So I Crawled Into Bed And Whistled Out The Light. You Aren’t Really There At All. There Isn’t Anybody But Me—jane—here Alone In The Dark. I Miss You Dreadfully!

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!

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

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.

There Is No Safety This Side Of The Grave

Stranger In A Strange Land

Every General Prohibition Creates Its Bootleggers.

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

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)

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

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

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

Random Chance Was Not A Sufficient Explanation Of The Universe---in Fact, Random Chance Was Not Sufficient To Explain Random Chance; The Pot Could Not Hold Itself.

Gratitude: An Imaginary Emotion That Rewards An Imaginary Behavior, Altruism. Both Imaginaries Are False Faces For Selfishness, Which Is A Real And Honest Emotion.

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

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.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

When Faced With A Problem You Do Not Understand, Do Any Part Of It You Do Understand, Then Look At It Again.

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

Cast Me Into A Dungeon, Burn Me At The Stake, Crown Me King Of Kings, I Can 'pursue Happiness' As Long As My Brain Lives - But Neither Gods Nor Saints, Wise Men Nor Subtle Drugs, Can Ensure That I Will Catch It.

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

Men Are Not Potatoes!

Never Appeal To A Man's 'better Nature.' He May Not Have One. Invoking His Self-interest Gives You More Leverage.

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

The Trouble With Conspiracies Is That They Rot Internally.

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

The Truth Of A Proposition Has Nothing To Do With Its Credibility. And Vice Versa.

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

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

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.

The Future Is Better Than The Past. Despite The Crepe Hangers, Romanticists, And Anti-intellectuals, The World Steadily Grows Better Because The Human Mind, Applying Itself To Environment, Makes It Better. With Hands ... With Tools ... With Horse Sense And Science And Engineering.

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.

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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.

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

May You Live As Long As You Wish And Love As Long As You Live.

Stupidity Cannot Be Cured With Money, Or Through Education, Or By Legislation.

Rarest Of All Is The Man Who Can And Does Reason At All Times, Quickly, Accurately, Inclusively, Despite Hope Or Fear Or Bodily Distress, Without Egocentric Bias Or Thalmic Disturbance, With Correct Memory, With Clear Distinction Between Fact, Assumption, And Non-fact.

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.

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

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

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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

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

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

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

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

Progress Isn't Made By Early Risers. It's Made By Lazy Men Trying To Find Easier Ways To Do Something.

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

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

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

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.

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

English Is The Largest Of Human Tongues, With Several Times The Vocabulary Of The Second Largest Language -- This Alone Made It Inevitable That English Would Eventually Become, As It Did, The Lingua Franca Of This Planet, For It Is Thereby The Richest And Most Flexible -- Despite Its Barbaric Accretions . . . Or, I Should Say, Because Of Its Barbaric Accretions. English Swallows Up Anything That Comes Its Way, Makes English Out Of It.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

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.

Every Law That Was Ever Written Opened Up A New Way To Graft.

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

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

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

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

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

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.

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

It's A Long Story. Want A Refill?" "no, Let's Start The Steak. Where's The Button?" "right Here." "well, Push It." "me? You Offered To Cook." "ben Caxton, I Will Lie Here And Starve Before I Will Get Up To Push A Button Six Inches From Your Finger" "as You Wish." He Pressed The Button. "but Don't Forget Who Cooked Dinner.

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Specialisation Is For Insects!

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.

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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

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

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.

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

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

When It Don’t Rain, The Roof Don’t Leak; When It Rains, I Can’t Fix It Nohow.

A Critic Is A Man Who Creates Nothing And Thereby Feels Qualified To Judge The Work Of Creative Men. There Is Logic In This; He Is Unbiased, He Hates All Creative People Equally.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

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

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

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

- 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.

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

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

Moving Parts In Rubbing Contact Require Lubrication To Avoid Excessive Wear. Honorifics And Formal Politeness Provide Lubrication Where People Rub Together. Often The Very Young, The Untravelled, The Naive, The Sophisticated Deplore These Formalities As 'empty,' 'meaningless,' Or 'dishonest,' And Scorn To Use Them. No Matter How 'pure' Their Motives, They Thereby Throw Sand Into Machinery That Does Not Work Too Well At Best.

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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.

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.

A Long And Wicked Life Followed By Five Minutes Of Perfect Grace Gets You Into Heaven. An Equally Long Life Of Decent Living And Good Works Followed By One Outburst Of Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain- Then Have A Heart Attack At That Moment And Be Damned For Eternity. Is That The System?

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

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.

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

If You Would Know A Man, Observe How He Treats A Cat.

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

No Statement Should Be Believed Because It Is Made By An Authority.

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

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

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

Working Together

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Anyone Who Clings To The Historically Untrue-and Thoroughly Immoral-doctrine That, 'violence Never Settles Anything' I Would Advise To Conjure The Ghosts Of Napoleon Bonaparte And The Duke Of Wellington And Let Them Debate It. The Ghost Of Hitler Could Referee, And The Jury Might Well Be The Dodo, The Great Auk And The Passenger Pigeon. Violence, Naked Force, Has Settled More Issues In History Than Has Any Other Factor, And The Contrary Opinion Is Wishful Thinking At Its Worst. Breeds That Forget This Basic Truth Have Always Paid For It With Their Lives And Freedom.

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.

Have You Ever Known Me To Be Rude To A Lady?" "i Have Seen You Be Intentionally Rude To A Woman. I Have Never Seen You Be Rude To A Lady.

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

If Tempted By Something That Feels 'altruistic,' Examine Your Motives And Root Out That Self-deception. Then, If You Still Want To Do It, Wallow In It!

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.

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

Secrecy Is The Beginning Of Tyranny

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.

The Bugs Are Not Like Us. The Pseudo-arachnids Aren’t Even Like Spiders. They Are Arthropods Who Happen To Look Like A Madman’s Conception Of A Giant Intelligent Spider, But Their Organization, Psychological And Economic, Is More Like That Of Ants Or Termites; They Are Communal Entities, The Ultimate Dictatorship Of The Hive.

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 It Can't Be Expressed In Figures, It Is Not Science; It Is Opinion. It Has Long Been Known That One Horse Can Run Faster Than Another - But Which One? Differences Are Crucial.

"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."

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

He Had Learned That Close-held Secrets Could Often Be Cracked By Going All The Way To The Top And There Making Himself Unbearably Unpleasant. He Knew That Such Twisting Of The Tiger's Tail Was Dangerous, For He Understood The Psychopathology Of Great Power.

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.

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

If You Are Part Of A Society That Votes, Then Do So. There May Be No Candidates And No Measures You Want To Vote For ... But There Are Certain To Be Ones You Want To Vote Against. In Case Of Doubt, Vote Against. By This Rule You Will Rarely Go Wrong.

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

Library Science Is The Key To All Science, Just As Mathematics Is Its Language - And Civilization Will Rise Or Fall, Depending On How Well Librarians Do Their Jobs.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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

Throughout History, Poverty Is The Normal Condition Of Man. Advances Which Permit This Norm To Be Exceeded — Here And There, Now And Then — Are The Work Of An Extremely Small Minority, Frequently Despised, Often Condemned, And Almost Always Opposed By All Right-thinking People. Whenever This Tiny Minority Is Kept From Creating, Or (as Sometimes Happens) Is Driven Out Of A Society, The People Then Slip Back Into Abject Poverty. This Is Known As "bad Luck.

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.

Formal Courtesy Between Husband And Wife Is Even More Important Than It Is Between Strangers.

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

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

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.

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

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

Mighty Little Force Is Needed To Control A Man Whose Mind Has Been Hoodwinked; Contrariwise, No Amount Of Force Can Control A Free Man, A Man Whose Mind Is Free. No, Not The Rack, Not Fission Bombs, Not Anything - You Can't Conquer A Free Man; The Most You Can Do Is Kill Him.

Specialization Is For Insects.

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

Heinlein's Rules For Writers Rule One: You Must Write Rule Two: Finish What Your Start Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except To Editorial Order Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story On The Market Rule Five: You Must Keep It On The Market Until It Has Sold

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

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

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

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.

Pessimist By Policy, Optimist By Temperament- It Is Possible To Be Both. How? By Never Taking An Unnecessary Chance And By Minimizing The Risks You Can't Avoid. This Permits You To Play Out The Game Untroubled By The Certainty Of The Outcome.

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.

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.

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