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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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It Would Take Centuries

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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

Girls Are Simply Wonderful. Just To Stand On A Corner And Watch Them Going Past Is Delightful. They Don't Walk. At Least Not What We Do When We Walk. I Don't Know How To Describe It, But It's Much More Complex And Utterly Delightful. They Don't Move Just Their Feet; Everything Moves And In Different Directions . . . And All Of It Graceful.

Spacemen Die If They Stay In One Place.

Of All The Strange 'crimes' That Human Beings Have Legislated Out Of Nothing, 'blasphemy' Is The Most Amazing -- With 'obscenity' And 'indecent Exposure' Fighting It Out For Second And Third Place.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

There Was One Field In Which Man Was Unsurpassed; He Showed Unlimited Ingenuity In Devising Bigger And More Efficient Ways To Kill Off, Enslave, Harass, And In All Ways Make An Unbearable Nuisance Of Himself To Himself.

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

Each Man Is His Own Prisoner, In Solitary Confinement For Life.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

It's Better To Copulate Than Not.

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

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

His Older Self Had Taught His Younger Self A Language Which The Older Self Knew Because The Younger Self, After Being Taught, Grew Up To Be The Older Self And Was, Therefore, Capable Of Teaching.

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

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.

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

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

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.

In The Absence Of Clearly-defined Goals, We Become Strangely Loyal To Performing Daily Trivia Until Ultimately We Become Enslaved By It.

History Is Never Surprising After It Happens.

...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.

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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

There Are Hidden Contradictions In The Minds Of People Who "love Nature" While Deploring The "artificialities" With Which "man Has Spoiled Nature.'" The Obvious Contradiction Lies In Their Choice Of Words, Which Imply That Man And His Artifacts Are Not Part Of "nature" : But Beavers And Their Dams Are.

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 Handy Short Definition Of Almost All Science Fiction Might Read: Realistic Speculation About Possible Future Events, Based Solidly On Adequate Knowledge Of The Real World, Past And Present, And On A Thorough Understanding Of The Nature And Significance Of The Scientific Method.

Thorough Understanding

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

English Language

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

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

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

How Can You Argue With A Woman Who Won't?

Christ Was Crucified For Preaching Without A Police Permit

Stranger In A Strange Land

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

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.

It's A Man's Business To Be What He Is, And To Be It In Style.

Secrecy Is The Beginning Of Tyranny

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.

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.

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

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.

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

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

Television Leaves No External Scars.

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

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

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)

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

For Me, Politeness Is A Sine Qua Non Of Civilization.

Drop Dead-but First Get Permit

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

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.

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

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

Death Isn't Funny." "then Why Are There So Many Jokes About Death? Jill, With Us — Us Humans — Death Is So Sad That We Must Laugh At It.

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

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.

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.

If A Grasshopper Tries To Fight A Lawnmower, One May Admire His Courage But Not His Judgement.

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.

Never Worry About Theory As Long As The Machinery Does What It's Supposed To Do.

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

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

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.'

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.

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!

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.

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

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

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

In A Mature Society, 'civil Servant' Is Semantically Equal To 'civil Master.'

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Don't Handicap Your Children By Making Their Lives Easy.

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

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

Please Don't Invent A Debt That Does Not Exist, Or Next You Will Be Trying To Feel Gratitude - And That Is The Treacherous First Step Toward Complete Moral Degradation.

Small Change Can Often Be Found Under Seat Cushions.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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

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

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

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

A Human Being Should Be Able To Change A Diaper, Plan An Invasion, Butcher A Hog, Conn A Ship, Design A Building, Write A Sonnet, Balance Accounts, Build A Wall, Set A Bone, Comfort The Dying, Take Orders, Give Orders, Cooperate, Act Alone, Solve Equations, Analyze A New Problem, Pitch Manure, Program A Computer, Cook A Tasty Meal, Fight Efficiently, Die Gallantly. Specialization Is For Insects.

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

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.

Get A Shot Off Fast. This Upsets Him Long Enough To Let You Make Your Second Shot Perfect.

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.

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

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.

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.

God Created Men To Test The Souls Of Women.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

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.

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

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.

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

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

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

I Have Never Been Able To See How A Thirty-year Old Moron Can Vote More Wisely Than A Fifteen-year Old Genius.

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

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

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.

Gentlemen, Let's Go Row!

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

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

I Believe In - I Am Proud To Belong To - The United States.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

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.

Behind Every Mystery Lies Another Mystery.

Only A Sadistic Scoundrel-or A Fool-tells The Bald Truth On Social Occasions.

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.

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

A Fake Fortuneteller Can Be Tolerated. But An Authentic Soothsayer Should Be Shot On Sight. Cassandra Did Not Get Half The Kicking Around She Deserved.

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

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.

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.

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.

Most People Who Sneer At Technology Would Starve To Death If The Engineering Infrastructure Were Removed.

The Ten Commandments Are For Lame Brains. The First Five Are Solely For The Benefit Of The Priests And The Powers That Be; The Second Five Are Half Truths, Neither Complete Nor Adequate.

Specialization Is For Insects.

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.

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.

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.

Men Are Not Potatoes!

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.

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

I'm Afraid Of Coaching, Of Writer's Classes, Of Writer's Magazines, Of Books On How To Write. They Give Me Centipede Trouble - You Know The Yarn About The Centipede Who Was Asked How He Managed All His Feet? He Tried To Answer, Stopped To Think About It, And Was Never Able To Walk Another Step.

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.

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

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.

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.

Aside From A Cold Appreciation Of My Own Genius I Felt That I Was A Modest Man.

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

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

The Most Noble Fate A Man Can Endure Is To Place His Own Mortal Body Between His Loved Home And The War's Desolation.

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

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

People Simplify 'apollonian' Into 'mild', And 'calm', And 'cool'. But 'apollonian' And 'dionysian' Are Two Sides Of One Coin--a Nun Kneeling In Her Cell, Holding Perfectly Still, Can Be In Ecstacy More Frenzied Than Any Priestess Of Pan Priapus Celebrating The Vernal Equinox.

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.

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

Unalienable Rights

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

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

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.

A Generation Which Ignores History Has No Past — And No Future.

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

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