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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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My Folks Tried To

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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Self Confidence

More From Robert A. Heinlein

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.

If I Had A Boy Scout I Could Make A Fire By Rubbing His Hind Legs Together.

Sex Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

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.

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

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

Unarmed Hand-to-hand Fighting Does Not Change Through The Ages; Only The Name Changes, And It Has Only One Rule: Do It First, Do It Fast, Do It Dirtiest.

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.

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

There Is Solemn Satisfaction In Doing The Best You Can For Eight Billion People. Perhaps Their Lives Have No Cosmic Significance, But They Have Feelings. They Can Hurt.

Spacemen Die If They Stay In One Place.

People Usually Believe Anything That They Are Told Early And Often.

The Hardest Part About Gaining Any New Idea Is Sweeping Out The False Idea Occupying That Niche. As Long As That Niche Is Occupied, Evidence And Proof And Logical Demonstration Get Nowhere. But Once The Niche Is Emptied Of The Wrong Idea That Has Been Filling It:; Once You Can Honestly Say, "i Don't Know", Then It Becomes Possible To Get At The Truth.

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.

Delusions Are Often Functional. A Mother's Opinions About Her Children's Beauty, Intelligence, Goodness, Et Cetera Ad Nauseam, Keep Her From Drowning Them At Birth.

Most 'scientists' Are Bottle Washers And Button Sorters.

My Dear, I Used To Think I Was Serving Humanity . . . And I Pleasured In The Thought. Then I Discovered That Humanity Does Not Want To Be Served; On The Contrary It Resents Any Attempt To Serve It. So Now I Do What Pleases Myself.

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

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

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.

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

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

Logic Is A Feeble Reed, Friend.

It Seems To Me That Any Law That Is Not Enforced And Can't Be Enforced Weakens All Other Laws.

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

...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.

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

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

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

...i Am Opposed To All Attempts To License Or Restrict The Arming Of Individuals... I Consider Such Laws A Violation Of Civil Liberty, Subversive Of Democratic Political Institutions, And Self-defeating In Their Purpose.

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

Decency Is Not News; It Is Buried In The Obituaries - But It Is A Force Stronger Than Crime.

People Who Go Broke In A Big Way Never Miss Any Meals. It Is The Poor Jerk Who Is Shy A Half Slug Who Must Tighten His Belt.

Yield To Temptation. It May Not Pass Your Way Again.

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

A Community Where Everyone Is A Ruthless Murderer, With Handy Access To Death-dealing Devices, Is A Very Polite Community.

Budget The Luxuries First.

I Did The Only Really Brave Thing I Have Ever Done In My Life: I Inched Forward.

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.

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

Unalienable Rights

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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

Never Attempt To Teach A Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

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.

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

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

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.

You Have To Give An Editor Something To Change, Or He Gets Fretful. After He Pees In It, He Likes The Flavor Better, So He Buys It.

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

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

...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.

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.

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

My Old Man Claimed That The More Complicated The Law The More Opportunity For Scoundrels.

I Woke Up In Bed With A Man And A Cat. The Man Was A Stranger; The Cat Was Not

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.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

Work Is Not An End In Itself; There Must Always Be Time Enough For Love.

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

English Language

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

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

Stupidity Is The Only Natural Capital Offense.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Democracy Can't Work. Mathematicians, Peasants, And Animals, That's All There Is - So Democracy, A Theory Based On The Assumption That Mathematicians And Peasants Are Equal, Can Never Work. Wisdom Is Not Additive; Its Maximum Is That Of The Wisest Man In A Given Group.

Audacity, Always Audacity - Soundest Principal Of Strategy.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

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

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

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.

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

Waking A Person Unnecessarily Should Not Be Considered A Capital Crime. For A First Offense, That Is.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Son, The Phrase Is Self-contradictory; "sense" Is Never "common".

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.

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

Come Judgment Day, We May Find That Mumbo Jumbo The God Of The Congo Was The Big Boss All Along.

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.

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

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

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

Faith Is Intellectual Laziness.

Intellectual Laziness

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The First Principle Of Freedom Is The Right To Go To Hell In Your Own Handbasket.

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.

What Is Supposed To Happen In A Democracy Is That Each Sovereign Citizen Will Always Vote In The Public Interest For The Safety And Welfare Of All. But What Does Happen Is That He Votes His Own Self-interest As He Sees It... Which For The Majority Translates As 'bread And Circuses'.

A Managed Democracy Is A Wonderful Thing... For The Managers... And Its Greatest Strength Is A 'free Press' When 'free' Is Defined As 'responsible' And The Managers Define What Is 'irresponsible'.

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

Why Do Some People Act As If Making Money Offended Their Delicate Minds? I Am Out For A Legitimate Profit, And Not Ashamed Of It; The Fact That People Will Pay Money For My Goods And Services Shows That My Work Is Useful.

One Should Not Attend Even The End Of The World Without A Good Breakfast.

End Of The World

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

If You Happen To Be One Of The Fretful Minority Who Can Do Creative Work, Never Force An Idea; You'll Abort It If You Do. Be Patient And You'll Give Birth To It When The Time Is Ripe. Learn To Wait.

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

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

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

Christ Was Crucified For Preaching Without A Police Permit

Stranger In A Strange Land

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.

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

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

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

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

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

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

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

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.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

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).

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.

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

More People Worry Themselves To Death Than Bleed To Death.

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.

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

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

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

Whoring Is Like Military Service...okay In The Upper Brackets, Not So Good Lower Down.

Military Service

He Never Gave Up His Search For The Door Into Summer.

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.

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

There Is No Worse Tyranny Than To Force A Man To Pay For What He Does Not Want Merely Because You Think It Would Be Good For Him.

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.

But Space Travel Can't Ease The Pressure On A Planet Grown Too Crowded Not Even With Today's Ships And Probably Not With Any Future Ships-because Stupid People Won't Leave The Slopes Of Their Home Volcano Even When It Starts To Smoke And Rumble. What Space Travel Does Do Is Drain Off The Best Brains: Those Smart Enough To See A Catastrophe Before It Happens, And With The Guts To Pay The Price-abandon Home, Wealth, Friends, Relatives, Everything-and Go. That's A Tiny Fraction Of One Percent. But That's Enough.

God Created Men To Test The Souls Of Women.

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.

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

Being Right Too Soon Is Socially Unacceptable.

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

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

A Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

The Death Rate Is The Same For Us As For Anybody ... One Person, One Death, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

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

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.

You Live And Learn. Or You Don't Live Long.

Political Tags - Such As Royalist, Communist, Democrat, Populist, Fascist, Liberal, Conservative, And So Forth - Are Never Basic Criteria. The Human Race Divides Politically Into Those Who Want People To Be Controlled And Those Who Have No Such Desire.

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

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

From Somewhere, Back In My Youth, Heard Prof Say, 'manuel, When Faced With A Problem You Do Not Understand, Do Any Part Of It You Do Understand, Then Look At It Again.' He Had Been Teaching Me Something He Himself Did Not Understand Very Well—something In Math—but Had Taught Me Something Far More Important, A Basic Principle.

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

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

Nor Would Anybody Suspect. If Was One Thing All People Took For Granted, Was Conviction That If You Feed Honest Figures Into A Computer, Honest Figures Come Out. Never Doubted It Myself Till I Met A Computer With A Sense Of Humor.

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.

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

No Matter What I Said They Insisted On Thinking Of God As Something Outside Themselves. Something That Yearns To Take Every Indolent Moron To His Breast And Comfort Him. The Notion That The Effort Has To Be Their Own . . . And That The Trouble They Are In Is All Their Own Doing . . . Is One That They Can't Or Won't Entertain.

Everything In Excess! To Enjoy The Flavor Of Life, Take Big Bites. Moderation Is For Monks.

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.

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.

I've Found Out Why People Laugh. They Laugh Because It Hurts- Because It's The Only Thing That'll Make It Stop Hurting... I Had Been Told That A 'funny' Thing Is A Thing Of Goodness. It Isn't... The Goodness Is In The Laughing. I Grok It Is A Bravery- And A Sharing- Against Pain And Sorrow And Defeat.

They Didn't Want It Good, They Wanted It Wednesday.

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

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

Self Awareness Is Not Just A Bunch Of Amino Acids Bumping Together.

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

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

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

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

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.

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

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.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

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.

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?

Victory In Defeat, There Is None Higher. She Didn't Give Up, Ben; She's Still Trying To Lift That Stone After It Has Crushed Her. She's A Father Working While Cancer Eats Away His Insides, To Bring Home One More Pay Check. She's A Twelve-year-old Trying To Mother Her Brothers And Sisters Because Mama Had To Go To Heaven. She's A Switchboard Operator Sticking To Her Post While Smoke Chokes Her And Fire Cuts Off Her Escape. She's All The Unsung Heroes Who Couldn't Make It But Never Quit.

The Marks Won't Listen If It's Free.

Once A Month, Some Women Act Like Men Act All The Time.

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

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

A Well Regulated Militia, Being Necessary To The Security Of A Free State, The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed. - Second Amendment To The Constitution An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

Libertarian Party

Assault Weapons

You Can Have Peace. Or You Can Have Freedom. Don't Ever Count On Having Both At Once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Men Are Not Potatoes!

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.

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Jose Manuel Barroso

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