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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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Long Human Words (the

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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

Autobiography Is Usually Honest But It Is Never Truthful.

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.

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

Daughters Can Spend Ten Percent More Than A Man Can Make In Any Usual Occupation. That’s A Law Of Nature, To Be Known Henceforth As ‘harshaw’s Law.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

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

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 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.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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.

Being Right Too Soon Is Socially Unacceptable.

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

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.

Being Sorry Won't Get You Into Heaven. Get Happy, Son. Get That Old Spring Into Your Step And Stay On Your Toes.

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

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.

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

Its Very Variety, Subtlety, And Utterly Irrational, Idiomatic Complexity Makes It Possible To Say Things In English Which Simply Cannot Be Said In Any Other Language.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Man Is Not A Rational Animal, He Is A Rationalizing Animal.

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

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

The Killer Looked Up As The Bullet Hit Him. He Looked As If He Were Puzzled By Some Strange Occurence, Being Too Freshly Dead To Be Aware Of It.

More People Worry Themselves To Death Than Bleed To Death.

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

There Is An Old, Old Story About A Theologian Who Was Asked To Reconcile The Doctrine Of Divine Mercy With The Doctrine Of Infant Damnation. 'the Almighty,' He Explained, 'finds It Necessary To Do Things In His Official And Public Capacity Which In His Private And Personal Capacity He Deplores.

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!

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

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.

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

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.

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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.

I Do Know That The Slickest Way To Lie Is To Tell The Right Amount Of Truth--then Shut Up.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It Was Equally Imperative That This Chain Of Reactions Should Always Tend To Dampen, To Die Out. It Must Not Build Up, Or The Uranium Mass Would Explode Within A Time Interval Too Short To Be Measured By Any Means Whatsoever. Nor Would There Be Anyone Left To Measure It.

Every Congressman, Every Senator Knows Precisely What Causes Inflation... But Can't, [won't] Support The Drastic Reforms To Stop It [repeal Of The Federal Reserve Act] Because It Could Cost Him His Job.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

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.

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

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.

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.

Money Is Truthful. If A Man Speaks Of His Honor, Make Him Pay Cash.

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.

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.

He Should Have Known Better Because, Early In His Learnings Under His Brother Mahmoud, He Had Discovered That 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. Or So He Seemed To Grok. Short Human Words Were Never Like A Short Martian Word - Such As Grok Which Forever Meant Exactly The Same Thing. Short Human Words Were Like Trying To Lift Water With A Knife. And This Had Been A Very Short Word.

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

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.

The Intelligent Fights Only When He Must And Never For Sport.

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

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 Have Attributed Conditions To Villainy That Simply Result From Stupidity.

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.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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.

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

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!

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 Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

"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."

Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.

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.

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

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.

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

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

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

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.

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

History Is Never Surprising After It Happens.

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

Cheops' Law: Nothing Ever Gets Built On Schedule Or Within Budget.

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

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

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.

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

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

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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.

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

Unalienable Rights

He's An Honest Politician--he Stays Bought.

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

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.

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.

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

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I'm Always Suspicious Of Disinterested Interest.

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

...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.

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

Drop Dead-but First Get Permit

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

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.

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

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.'

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Always Store Beer In A Dark Place.

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

Of All The Nonsense That Twists The World, The Concept Of 'altruism' Is The Worst. People Do What They Want To, Every Time. If It Pains Them To Make A Choice - If The Choice Looks Like A 'sacrifice' - You Can Be Sure That It Is No Nobler Than The Discomfort Caused By Greediness... The Necessity Of Deciding Between Two Things You Want When You Can't Have Both.

His Was Not A Small Mind Bothered By Logic And Consistency.

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.

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.

Many Short-sighted Fools Think That Going To The Moon Was Just A Stunt. But The Astronauts Knew The Meaning Of What They Were Doing, As Is Shown By Neil Armstrong's First Words In Stepping Down Onto The Soil Of Luna: "one Small Step For A Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind."

The Human Race Divides Politically Into Those Who Want People To Be Controlled And Those Who Have No Such Desire.

Don't Explain Computers To Laymen. Simpler To Explain Sex To A Virgin.

...more Than Six People Cannot Agree On Anything, Three Is Better And One Is Perfect For A Job That One Can Do. This Is Why Parliamentary Bodies All Through History, When They Accomplished Anything, Owed It To A Few Strong Men Who Dominated The Rest.

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

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

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

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

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

The Greatest Productive Force Is Human Selfishness.

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.

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

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

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.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially. When They Are Growing Up, They Are Nerve Ends All Over, And Resent (quite Properly) Any Invasion Of Their Privacy. Oh, Sure, They'll Make Mistakes - But That's Their Business, Not Yours. (you Made Your Own Mistakes, Did You Not?)

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.

Specialisation Is For Insects!

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

Taxes Are Not Levied For The Benefit Of The Taxed.

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

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

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

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.

We Each Have A Moral Obligation To Conserve And Preserve Beauty In This World; There Is None To Waste.

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.

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

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.

But, Do You Know, Once You Get Used To It's Rather Cute. I Mean, If A Girl Looks Alright To Start With, She Still Looks Alright With Her Head Smooth.

History Does Not Record Anywhere At Any Time A Religion That Has Any Rational Basis. Religion Is A Crutch For People Not Strong Enough To Stand Up To The Unknown Without Help. But, Like Dandruff, Most People Do Have A Religion And Spend Time And Money On It And Seem To Derive Considerable Pleasure From Fiddling With It.

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

The More You Love, The More You Can Love--and The More Intensely You Love. Nor Is There Any Limit On How Many You Can Love. If A Person Had Time Enough, He Could Love All Of That Majority Who Are Decent And Just.

All Men Are Created Unequal.

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.

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

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.

If I Had Found Out Anything, It Was That They Could Print It Faster Than I Could Study It.

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.

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

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

It Is A Truism That Almost Any Sect, Cult, Or Religion Will Legislate Its Creeds Into Law If It Acquires The Political Power To Do So, And Will Follow It By Suppressing Opposition, Subverting All Education To Seize Early The Minds Of The Young, And By Killing, Locking Up, Or Driving Underground All Heretics.

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.

Liberty Is Never Unalienable; It Must Be Redeemed Regularly With The Blood Of Patriots Or It Always Vanishes. Of All The So-called Natural Human Rights That Have Ever Been Invented, Liberty Is Least Likely To Be Cheap And Is Never Free Of Cost.

There Is No Safety This Side Of The Grave

Stranger In A Strange Land

Specialization Is For Insects.

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.

Democracy Is A Poor System Of Government At Best; The Only Thing That Can Honestly Be Said In Its Favor Is That It Is Eight Times As Good As Any Other Method The Human Race Has Ever Tried.

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.

Contemplation Must Bring Forth Right Action In Order To Permit Further Growth.

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

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

Art Is The Process Of Evoking Pity And Terror, Which Is Not Abstract At All But Very Human. What The Self-styled Modern Artists Are Doing Is A Sort Of Unemotional Pseudointellectual Masturbation . . . Whereas Creative Art Is More Like Intercourse, In Which The Artist Must Seduce -- Render Emotional -- His Audience, Each Time.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

Anyone Who Cannot Cope With Mathematics Is Not Fully Human. At Best, He Is A Tolerable Subhuman Who Has Learned To Wear His Shoes, Bathe, And Not Make Messes In The House.

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?

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

Women Seem To Have Almost Unlimited Capacity For Forgiveness. (since It Is Usually A Man Who Needs Forgiveness, This Must Be A Racial Survival Trait.

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.

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.

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

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

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

An Armed Man Need Not Fight.

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

Price Of Freedom

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

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

Civilians Are Like Beans; You Buy 'em As Needed For Any Job Which Merely Requires Skill And Savvy. But You Can't Buy Fighting Spirit.

The Second Best Thing About Space Travel Is That The Distances Involved Make War Very Difficult, Usually Impractical, And Almost Always Unnecessary. This Is Probably A Loss For Most People, Since War Is Our Race's Most Popular Diversion, One Which Gives Purpose And Color To Dull And Stupid Lives. But It Is A Great Boon To The Intelligent Man Who Fights Only When He Must-never For Sport.

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.

It's Amazing How Much 'mature Wisdom' Resembles Being Too Tired.

Christ Was Crucified For Preaching Without A Police Permit

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

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

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