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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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Of All The Nonsense

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

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

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

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

Some People Insist That "mediocre" Is Better Than "best." They Delight In Clipping Wings Because They Themselves Can't Fly. They Despise Brains Because They Have None.

Do This. Don't Do That. Stay Back In Line. Where's Tax Receipt? Fill Out Form. Let's See License. Submit Six Copies. Exit Only. No Left Turn. No Right Turn. Queue Up And Pay Fine. Take Back And Get Stamped. Drop Dead— But First Get Permit.

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

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

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

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

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

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

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

Nothing Could Go Wrong Because Nothing Had...i Meant "nothing Would." No - Then I Quit Trying To Phrase It, Realizing That If Time Travel Ever Became Widespread, English Grammar Was Going To Have To Add A Whole New Set Of Tenses To Describe Reflexive Situations - Conjugations That Would Make The French Literary Tenses And The Latin Historical Tenses Look Simple.

English Grammar

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

Stinky Says Women Should Be Obscene But Not Heard.

A Skunk Is Better Company Than A Person Who Prides Himself On Being 'frank'.

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

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

Autobiography Is Usually Honest But It Is Never Truthful.

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

A Motion To Adjourn Is Always In Order.

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

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

Must Be Yearning Deep In Human Heart To Stop Other People From Doing As They Please.

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.

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

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

A Slave Cannot Be Freed, Save He Do It Himself. Nor Can You Enslave A Free Man; The Very Most You Can Do Is Kill Him!

The 3-legged Stool Of Understanding Is Held Up By History, Languages, And Mathematics. Equipped With Those Three You Can Learn Anything You Want To Learn. But If You Lack Any One Of Them You Are Just Another Ignorant Peasant With Dung On Your Boots.

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

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

The United States Has Become A Place Where Entertainers And Professional Athletes Are Mistaken For People Of Importance.

I Believe That Almost All Politicians Are Honest. For Every Bribed Alderman There Are Hundreds Of Politicians, Low Paid Or Not Paid At All, Doing Their Level Best Without Thanks Or Glory To Make Our System Work. If This Were Not True, We Would Never Have Gotten Past The Thirteen Colonies.

I Wanted The Feeling Of Romance And The Sense Of Wonder I Had Known As A Kid. I Wanted The World To Be What They Had Promised Me It Was Going To Be - Instead Of The Tawdry, Lousy Fouled-up Mess It Is.

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.

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

English Language

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

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.

Spacemen Die If They Stay In One Place.

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

Sex Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

One Could Write A History Of Science In Reverse By Assembling The Solemn Pronouncements Of Highest Authority About What Could Not Be Done And Could Never Happen.

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.

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

Never Try To Have The Last Word. You Might Get It.

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.

Who Is More Real? Homer Or Ulysses? Shakespeare Or Hamlet? Burroughs Or Tarzan?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Am Free, No Matter What Rules Surround Me. If I Find Them Tolerable, I Tolerate Them; If I Find Them Too Obnoxious, I Break Them.

Taxes Are Not Levied For The Benefit Of The Taxed.

Specialisation Is For Insects!

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Military Service

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

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

My Folks Tried To Make A Preacher Of Me And Missed By A Narrow Margin… I Would Have Made A Good One If I Hadn’t Fallen Into The Fatal Folly Of Reading Anything I Could Lay Hands On. With Just A Touch More Self Confidence And A Liberal Helping Of Ignorance I Could Have Been A Famous Evangelist.

Self Confidence

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

It Is Impossible For A Man To Love His Wife Whole Heartedly Without Loving All Women Somewhat. I Suppose That The Converse Must Be True Of Women.

Almost Everything About A Human Creature Is Ridiculous, Except Its Ability To Suffer Bravely And Die Gallantly For Whatever It Loves And Believes In. The Validity Of That Belief, The Appropriateness Of That Love, Is Irrelevant; It Is The Bravery And The Gallantry That Count.

Paymasters Come In Only Two Sizes: One Sort Shows You Where The Book Says That You Can't Have What You've Got Coming To You; The Second Sort Digs Through The Book Until He Finds A Paragraph That Lets You Have What You Need Even If You Don't Rate It.

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

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

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

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.

A Religion Is A Source Of Happiness And I Would Not Deprive Anyone Of Happiness. But It Is A Comfort Appropriate For The Weak, Not For The Strong--and You Are Strong. The Great Trouble With Religion--any Religion--is That The Religionist, Having Accepted Certain Propositions By Faith, Cannot Thereafter Judge These Propositions By Evidence. One May Bask At The Warm Fire Of Faith Or Choose To Live In The Bleak Uncertainty Of Reason--but One Cannot Have Both.

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

In A Dilemma, It Is Helpful To Change Any Variable, Then Reexamine The Problem.

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

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

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

Women Will Forgive Anything. Otherwise, The Race Would Have Died Out Long Ago.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

...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.

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

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

The Most Ridiculous Concept Ever Perpetrated By Homo Sapiens Is That The Lord God Of Creation, Shaper And Ruler Of The Universes, Wants The Saccharine Adoration Of His Creations, That He Can Be Persuaded By Their Prayers, And Becomes Petulant If He Does Not Receive This Flattery. Yet This Ridiculous Notion, Without One Real Shred Of Evidence To Bolster It, Has Gone On To Found One Of The Oldest, Largest And Least Productive Industries In History.

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

By The Data To Date, There Is Only One Animal In The Galaxy Dangerous To Man -- Man Himself. So He Must Supply His Own Indispensable Competition. He Has No Enemy To Help Him.

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If 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.

Sense Is Never Common.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Earth Is Just Too Small And Fragile A Basket For The Human Race To Keep All Its Eggs In.

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.

A Woman Is Not Property, And Husbands Who Think Otherwise Are Living In A Dreamworld.

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

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

Audacity, Always Audacity - Soundest Principal Of Strategy.

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

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

Working Together

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.

The Greatest Fallacy Of Democracy Is That Everyone's Opinion Is Worth The Same.

In A Society In Which It Is A Moral Offense To Be Different From Your Neighbor Your Only Escape Is To Never Let Them Find Out.

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.

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

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

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

Pacifism Is A Shifty Doctrine Under Which A Man Accepts The Benefits Of The Social Group Without Being Willing To Pay; And Claims A Halo For His Dishonesty.

Everybody Lies About Sex.

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

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.

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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.

Straining At Gnats And Swallowing Camels Is A Required Course In Law Schools.

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

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.

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

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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."

Never Cast Pearls Before Swine.

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

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

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

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

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

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

Expertise In One Field Does Not Carry Over Into Other Fields. But Experts Often Think So. The Narrower Their Field Of Knowledge The More Likely They Are To Think So.

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

Whether The Authorities Be Invaders Or Merely Local Tyrants, The Effect Of Such [gun Control] Laws Is To Place The Individual At The Mercy Of The State, Unable To Resist.

Nowhere On Earth Was Sex So Vigorously Suppressed As In America--and Nowhere Else Was There Such A Deep Interest In It.

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.

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

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

Random Chance Is Not Sufficient To Explain Random Chance. ~jubal Harshaw

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

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

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.

At One Time Kings Were Anointed By Deity, So The Problem Was To See To It That Deity Chose The Right Candidate. In This Age The Myth Is "the Will Of The People" ... But The Problem Changes Only Superficially.

Learn To Say No—and To Be Rude About It When Necessary. Otherwise You Will Not Have Time To Carry Out Your Duty, Or To Do Your Own Work, And Certainly No Time For Love And Happiness. The Termites Will Nibble Away Your Life And Leave None Of It For You.

Happiness And Love

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.

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

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

Be Wary Of Strong Drink. It Can Make You Shoot At Tax Collectors... And Miss.

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

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

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

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

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

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

As It Says In Bible, God Fights On Side Of Heaviest Artillery.

Under What Circumstances Is It Moral For A Group To Do That Which Is Not Moral For A Member Of That Group To Do Alone?

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

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

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.

Ninety Percent Of All Human Wisdom Is The Ability To Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

When Any Government, Or Any Church For That Matter, Undertakes To Say To Its Subjects, This You May Not Read, This You Must Not See, This You Are Forbidden To Know, The End Result Is Tyranny And Oppression No Matter How Holy The Motives.

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.

Do-gooding Is Like Treating Hemophilia - The Real Cure Is To Let Hemophiliacs Bleed To Death...before They Breed More Hemophiliacs.

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

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

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.

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

Theology Is Never Any Help; It Is Searching In A Dark Cellar At Midnight For A Black Cat That Isn't There. Theologians Can Persuade Themselves Of Anything.

Sex Should Be Friendly. Otherwise Stick To Mechanical Toys; It's More Sanitary.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I'm Always Suspicious Of Disinterested Interest.

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