Background Image

...

[t]here Seems To Have Been An Actual Decline In Rational Thinking. The United States Had Become A Place Where Entertainers And Professional Athletes Were Mistaken For People Of Importance. They Were Idolized And Treated As Leaders; Their Opinions Were Sought On Everything And They Took Themselves Just As Seriously-after All, If An Athlete Is Paid A Million Or More A Year, He Knows He Is Important ... So His Opinions Of Foreign Affairs And Domestic Policies Must Be Important, Too, Even Though He Proves Himself To Be Ignorant And Subliterate Every Time He Opens His Mouth.

-Robert A. Heinlein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

[t]here Seems To Have

Robert A. Heinlein

...

[t]here Seems To Have Been An Actual Decline In Rational Thinking. The United States Had Become A Place Where Entertainers And Professional Athletes Were Mistaken For People Of Importance. They Were Idolized And Treated As Leaders; Their Opinions Were Sought On Everything And They Took Themselves Just As Seriously-after All, If An Athlete Is Paid A Million Or More A Year, He Knows He Is Important ... So His Opinions Of Foreign Affairs And Domestic Policies Must Be Important, Too, Even Though He Proves Himself To Be Ignorant And Subliterate Every Time He Opens His Mouth.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Robert A. Heinlein

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

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

Take Care Of The Cojones And The Frijoles Will Take Care Of Themselves. Try To Have Getaway Money - But Don't Be Fanatic About It.

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

Men Are Expendable; Women And Children Are Not. A Tribe Or A Nation Can Lose A High Percentage Of Its Men And Still Pick Up The Pieces And Go On ... As Long As The Women And Children Are Saved.

I'm Always Suspicious Of Disinterested Interest.

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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

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.

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

Touch Is The Most Fundamental Sense. A Baby Experiences It, All Over, Before He Is Born And Long Before He Learns To Use Sight, Hearing, Or Taste, And No Human Ever Ceases To Need It. Keep Your Children Short On Pocket Money But Long On Hugs

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

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

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

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.

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

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

Gentlemen, Let's Go Row!

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

I Scrolled On Down To The Obituaries. I Usually Read The Obituaries First As There Is Always The Happy Chance That One Of Them Will Make My Day.

The Bible Is Such A Gargantuan Collection Of Conflicting Values That Anyone Can Prove Anything From It.

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

Make Money, Lose Money - Who Cares? The Idea Is To Enjoy It.

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

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

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

A Society That Gets Rid Of All Its Troublemakers Goes Downhill.

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

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

How You Behave Toward Cats Here Below Determines Your Status In Heaven.

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.

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.

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

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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

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.

Learning Isn't A Means To An End; It Is An End In Itself.

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.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

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.

The Best Things In History Are Accomplished By People Who Get Tired Of Being Shoved Around.

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.

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

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.

Death Is An Old Friend; I Know Him Well. I Lived With Him, Ate With Him, Slept With Him; To Meet Him Again Does Not Frighten Me Death Is As Necessary As Birth, As Happy In Its Own Way.

Nobody Ever Wins A Lawsuit But The Lawyers.

Never Tease An Old Dog; He Might Have One Bite Left.

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

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.

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

Secrecy Is The Beginning Of Tyranny

You Got The Impression That He Never Needed To Sleep - Just Ten-thousand-mile Checkups And Dust Him Off Occasionally.

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

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

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

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

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."

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.

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

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

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

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

One Of The Sanest, Surest, And Most Generous Joys Of Life Comes From Being Happy Over The Good Fortune Of Others.

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.

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

The Early Worm Deserves The Bird.

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.

The Greatest Productive Force Is Human Selfishness.

Every General Prohibition Creates Its Bootleggers.

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

Men Are Not Potatoes!

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.

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

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

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

Anything Free Costs Twice As Much In The Long Run Or Turns Out Worthless.

Women And Cats Will Do As They Please, And Men And Dogs Should Relax And Get Used To The Idea.

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

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

But Goodness Alone Is Never Enough. A Hard, Cold Wisdom Is Required For Goodness To Accomplish Good. Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

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

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.

Nothing Gives Life More Zest That Running For Your Life.

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

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

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

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

Do Not Confuse "duty" With What Other People Expect Of You; They Are Utterly Different. Duty Is A Debt You Owe To Yourself To Fulfill Obligations You Have Assumed Voluntarily. Paying That Debt Can Entail Anything From Years Of Patient Work To Instant Willingness To Die. Difficult It May Be, But The Reward Is Self-respect.

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

Audacity, Always Audacity - Soundest Principal Of Strategy.

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

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

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

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

A Motion To Adjourn Is Always In Order.

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.

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

Those Who Refuse To Support And Defend The State Have No Claim To Protection By That State. Killing An Anarchist Or A Pacifist Should Not Be Considered "murder" In A Legalistic Sense. The Offense Against The State, If Any, Should Be "using Deadly Weapons Within City Limits," Or "creating A Traffic Hazard," Or Other Misdemeanor.

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

I Had Taken A Partner Once Before—but, Damnation, No Matter How Many Times You Get Your Fingers Burned, You Have To Trust People. Otherwise You Are A Hermit In A Cave, Sleeping With One Eye Open.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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.

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

There Will Always Be Survivors.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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. I Am Free Because I Know That I Alone Am Morally Responsible For Everything I Do.

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

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

Spacemen - Men Who Work In Space, Pilots And Jetmen And Astrogators And Such - Are Men Who Like A Few Million Miles Of Elbow Room.

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

"peace" Is A Condition In Which No Civilian Pays Any Attention To Military Casualties Which Do Not Achieve Page-one, Lead-story Prominence-unless That Civilian Is A Close Relative Of One Of The Casualties. But, If There Ever Was A Time In History When "peace" Meant That There Was No Fighting Going On, I Have Been Unable To Find Out About It.

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Man Has No Moral Instinct. He Is Not Born With Moral Sense. You Were Not Born With It, I Was Not - And A Puppy Has None. We Acquire Moral Sense, When We Do, Through Training, Experience, And Hard Sweat Of The Mind.

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.

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

A "critic" Is A Man Who Creates Nothing.

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

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

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

There Is No Such Thing As 'social Gambling.' Either You Are There To Cut The Other Bloke's Heart Out And Eat It -- Or You're A Sucker. If You Don't Like This Choice -- Don't Gamble.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

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

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

If Men Were The Automatons That Behaviorists Claim They Are, The Behaviorist Psychologists Could Not Have Invented The Amazing Nonsense Called 'behaviorist Psychology.'

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.

Sin Is Cruelty And Injustice, All Else Is Peccadillo.

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

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.

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.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

Animals Can Be Driven Crazy By Placing Too Many In Too Small A Pen. Homo Sapiens Is The Only Animal That Voluntarily Does This To Himself.

On Two Subjects The Overwhelming Majority Of People Regarded Their Own Opinions As Absolute Truth, And Sincerely Believed That Anyone Who Disagreed With Them Was Immoral, Outrageous, Sinful, Sacrilegious, Offensive, Intolerable, Stupid, Illogical, Treasonable, Actionable, Against The Public Interest, Ridiculous, And Obscene. The Two Subjects Were (of Course) Sex And Religion.

Small Change Can Often Be Found Under Seat Cushions.

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.'

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

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

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!

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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

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

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

All Men Are Created Unequal.

A Friend Who Offers Help Without Asking For Explanations Is A Treasure Beyond Price

Cute Friendship

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

Budget The Luxuries First.

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

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

No Intelligent Man Has Any Respect For An Unjust Law.

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

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.

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.

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.

Yes, Boss?' Dorcas, The Last Twenty Or Thirty Years I've Been A Worthless, No-good Parasite.' She Yawned Again. 'everybody Knows That.' Nevermind The Flattery. There Comes A Time In Every Man's Life When He Has To Stop Being Sensible--a Time To Stand Up And Be Counted--strike A Blow For Liberty--smite The Wicked.' Ummm...' So Quit Yawning, The Time Has Come.' She Glanced Down. 'maybe I Had Better Get Dressed.

Logic Is A Feeble Reed, Friend. "logic" Proved That Airplanes Can't Fly And That H-bombs Won't Work And That Stones Don't Fall Out Of The Sky. Logic Is A Way Of Saying That Anything Which Didn't Happen Yesterday Won't Happen Tomorrow.

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

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

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

When I Don’t Understand, I Have An Unbearable Itch To Know Why.

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

Dad Claims That Library Science Is The Foundation Of All Sciences Just As Math Is The Key -- And We Will Survive Or Founder, Depending On How Well The Librarians Do Their Jobs. Librarians Didn't Look Glamorous To Me But Maybe Dad Had Hit On A Not Very Obvious Truth.

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

Sovereign," Like "love," Means Anything You Want It To Mean; It's A Word In Dictionary Between "sober" And "sozzled.

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

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.

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

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

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'.

If You Do Not Believe That A Man Will Commit Murder For One Can Of Tomatoes, Then You Have Never Been Hungry.

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

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's An Honest Politician--he Stays Bought.

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?)

Trending Author

Category