Background Image

...

The Faith In Which I Was Brought Up Assured Me That I Was Better Than Other People; I Was Saved, They Were Damned.... Our Hymns Were Loaded With Arrogance - Self-congratulation On How Cozy We Were With The Almighty And What A High Opinion He Had Of Us, What Hell Everybody Else Would Catch Come Judgment Day.

-Robert A. Heinlein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Faith In Which

Robert A. Heinlein

...

The Faith In Which I Was Brought Up Assured Me That I Was Better Than Other People; I Was Saved, They Were Damned.... Our Hymns Were Loaded With Arrogance - Self-congratulation On How Cozy We Were With The Almighty And What A High Opinion He Had Of Us, What Hell Everybody Else Would Catch Come Judgment Day.

Views: 9

Topic

Congratulations

More From Robert A. Heinlein

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.

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.

The Most Expensive Thing In The World Is A Second-best Military Establishment, Good But Not Good Enough To Win.

Love Is That Condition In Which The Happiness Of Another Person Is Essential To Your Own.

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

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.'

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.

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.

To Permit Irresponsible Authority Is To Sell Disaster.

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.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

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

When Faced With A Problem You Do Not Understand, Do Any Part Of It You Do Understand, Then Look At It Again.

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

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

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

- I'm So Busy Doing What I Must Do That I Don't Have Time For What I Ought To Do... And I Never Get A Chance To Do What I Want To Do! - Son, That's Universal. The Way To Keep That Recipe From Killing You Is Occasionally To Do What You Want To Do Anyhow.

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

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

How Anybody Expects A Man To Stay In Business With Every Two-bit Wowser In The Country Claiming A Veto Over What We Can Say And Can't Say And What We Can Show And What We Can't Show - It's Enough To Make You Throw Up. The Whole Principle Is Wrong; It's Like Demanding That Grown Men Live On Skim Milk Because The Baby Can't Eat Steak.

All Societies Are Based On Rules To Protect Pregnant Women And Young Children. All Else Is Surplusage, Excrescence, Adornment, Luxury, Or Folly Which Can - And Must - Be Dumped In Emergency To Preserve This Prime Function. As Racial Survival Is The Only Universal Morality, No Other Basic Is Possible. Attempts To Formulate A "perfect Society" On Any Foundation Other Than "women And Children First!" Is Not Only Witless, It Is Automatically Genocidal. Nevertheless, Starry-eyed Idealists (all Of Them Male) Have Tried Endlessly - And No Doubt Will Keep Trying.

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!'

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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

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

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.

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

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.

The Commonest Weakness Of Our Race Is Our Ability To Rationalize Our Most Selfish Purposes.

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

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.

An Armed Man Need Not Fight.

...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.

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.

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

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

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

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.

Always Store Beer In A Dark Place.

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.

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.

The Purpose Of War Is To Support Your Government's Decisions By Force.

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

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

Sin Lies Only In Hurting Others Unnecessarily. All Other "sins" Are Invented Nonsense.

Anyone Who Can Worship A Trinity And Insist That His Religion Is A Monotheism Can Believe Anything.

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.

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

Progress Is Made By Lazy Men Looking For Easier Ways To Do Things.

My Old Man Taught Me Two Things: 'mind Own Business' And 'always Cut Cards.'

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

Butterflies Are Self Propelled Flowers.

I Was There To See Beautiful Naked Women. So Was Everybody Else. It's A Common Failing.

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.

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

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

Price Of Freedom

Age Does Not Bring Wisdom... But It Does Give Perspective... And The Saddest Sight Of All Is To See, Far Behind You, Temptations You've Resisted.

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

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.

In A Family Argument, If It Turns Out You Are Right, Apologize At Once.

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

Reason Is Poor Propaganda When Opposed By The Yammering, Unceasing Lies Of Shrewd And Evil And Self-serving Men.

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

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

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.

Coffee Comes In Five Descending Stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, And Carbon Remover.

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

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

Television Leaves No External Scars.

Never Frighten A Little Man. He'll Kill You.

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

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.

First You Must Learn To Control Your Self. The Rest Follows. Blessed Is He Who Knows Himself And Commands Himself, For The World Is His And Love And Happiness And Peace Walk With Him Wherever He Goes.

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

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

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

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

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.

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

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.

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

It Was Better To Live With Disappointment And Frustration Than To Live Without Hope.

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

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.

Remember This: Once The Human Race Is Established On More Than One Planet And Especially, In More Than One Solar System, There Is No Way Now Imaginable To Kill Off The Human Race.

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

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

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

A Fool Cannot Be Protected From His Folly. If You Attempt To Do So, You Will Not Only Arouse His Animosity But Also You Will Be Attempting To Deprive Him Of Whatever Benefit He Is Capable Of Deriving From Experience. Never Attempt To Teach A Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

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.

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

Gratitude Is A Euphemism For Resentment.

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.

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

Morals - All Correct Moral Laws - Derive From The Instinct To Survive. Moral Behavior Is Survival Behavior Above The Individual Level.

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.

How Can I Possibly Put A New Idea Into Your Heads, If I Do Not First Remove Your Delusions?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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?)

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

Never Pick Up A Stray Kitten . . . Unless You've Already Made Up Your Mind To Be Owned By It.

But Does Man Have Any 'right' To Spread Through The Universe? Man Is What He Is, A Wild Animal With The Will To Survive, And (so Far) The Ability, Against All Competition. Unless One Accepts That, Anything One Says About Morals, War, Politics, You Name It, Is Nonsense. Correct Morals Arise From Knowing What Man Is, Not What Do-gooders And Well-meaning Old Aunt Nellies Would Like Him To Be. The Universe Will Let Us Know - Later - Whether Or Not Man Has Any "right" To Expand Through It.

There Will Always Be Survivors.

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

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 More You Love, The More You Can Love - And The More Intensely You Love.

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

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

It's Better To Copulate Than Not.

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

Sin Is Cruelty And Injustice, All Else Is Peccadillo. Oh, A Sense Of Sin Comes From Violating The Customs Of Your Tribe. But Breaking Custom Is Not Sin Even When It Feels So; Sin Is Wronging Another Person.

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.

Nobody Ever Wins A Lawsuit But The Lawyers.

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

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

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

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).

Democracy's Worst Fault Is That Its Leaders Are Likely To Reflect The Faults And Virtues Of Their Constituents.

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

A "critic" Is A Man Who Creates Nothing.

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

Was There Ever A Time When The Majority Was Right?

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

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

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

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

Sooner Or Later

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

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

Stupidity Is The Only Natural Capital Offense.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Everybody Lies About Sex.

Formal Courtesy Between Husband And Wife Is Even More Important Than It Is Between Strangers.

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

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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

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

It Takes Two To Create A Heaven, But Hell Can Be Accomplished By One.

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Take Sex Away From People. Make It Forbidden, Evil. Limit It To Ritualistic Breeding. Force It To Back Up Into Suppressed Sadism. Then Hand The People A Scapegoat To Hate. Let Them Kill A Scapegoat Occasionally For Cathartic Release. The Mechanism Is Ages Old. Tyrants Used It Centuries Before The Word "psychology" Was Ever Invented. It Works, Too.

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.

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

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

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

Love Is That Condition In Which The Happiness Of Another Person Is Essential To Your Own... Jealousy Is A Disease, Love Is A Healthy Condition. The Immature Mind Often Mistakes One For The Other, Or Assumes That The Greater The Love, The Greater The Jealousy.

Analogy Is Even Slipperier Than Logic.

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

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

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

Sin Is Cruelty And Injustice, All Else Is Peccadillo.

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

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

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

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.

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

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Believe That This Hairless Embryo With The Aching, Oversize Brain Case And The Opposable Thumb, This Animal Barely Up From The Apes, Will Endure --will Endure Longer Than His Home Planet, Will Spread Out To The Other Planets, To The Stars, And Beyond, Carrying With Him His Honesty, His Insatiable Curiosity, His Unlimited Courage --and His Noble Essential Decency. This I Believe With All My Heart.

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

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

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

"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.

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

Citizenship Is An Attitude, A State Of Mind, An Emotional Conviction That The Whole Is Greater Than The Part...and That The Part Should Be Humbly Proud To Sacrifice Itself That The Whole May Live.

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

If We Blow Ourselves Up We Will Do It By Misapplication Of Science; If We Manage To Keep From Blowing Ourselves Up, It Will Be Through Intelligent Application Of Science.

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!

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.

By The Laws Of Statistics We Could Probably Approximate Just How Unlikely It Is That It Would Happen. But People Forget Especially Those Who Ought To Know Better, Such As Yourself That While The Laws Of Statistics Tell You How Unlikely A Particular Coincidence Is, They State Just As Firmly That Coincidences Do Happen.

Trending Author

Marcus Aurelius

Guy De Maupassant

James Montgomery

Category