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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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The Most Ridiculous Concept

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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

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.

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.

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!'

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

The Right To Figure Things Out For Yourself Is The Only True Freedom Everyone Shares. Go Use It.

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.

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.

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

What We Think Of As 'physical Beauty' Is Almost Certainly A Tag For A Complex Of Useful Survival Characteristics. Smartness - Intelligence - Among Them.

Gratitude Is A Euphemism For Resentment.

The Ten Commandments Are For Lame Brains. The First Five Are Solely For The Benefit Of The Priests And The Powers That Be; The Second Five Are Half Truths, Neither Complete Nor Adequate.

Always Tell Her She Is Beautiful, Especially If She Is Not.

It May Be Better To Be A Live Jackal Than A Dead Lion, But It Is Better Still To Be A Live Lion. And Usually Easier.

Library Science Is The Key To All Science, Just As Mathematics Is Its Language - And Civilization Will Rise Or Fall, Depending On How Well Librarians Do Their Jobs.

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

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.

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

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

There Are Hidden Contradictions In The Minds Of People Who "love Nature" While Deploring The "artificialities" With Which "man Has Spoiled Nature.'" The Obvious Contradiction Lies In Their Choice Of Words, Which Imply That Man And His Artifacts Are Not Part Of "nature" : But Beavers And Their Dams Are.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

It Is Impossible For Anyone To Be Responsible For Another Person's Behavior. The Most You Or Any Leader Can Do Is To Encourage Each One To Be Responsible For Himself.

Following Your Own Path

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.

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

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

If A Thing's Worth Doing, It's Worth Overdoing. (lazarus Long)

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

Mind Your Own Business

At Least Once Every Human Should Have To Run For His Life, To Teach Him That Milk Does Not Come From Supermarkets, That Safety Does Not Come From Policemen, That 'news' Is Not Something That Happens To Other People. He Might Learn How His Ancestors Lived And That He Himself Is No Different--in The Crunch His Life Depends On His Agility, Alertness, And Personal Resourcefulness.

All My Enemies Are Self-appointed.

All Normal Human Beings Have Soi-disant Mixed-up Glands. The Race Is Divided Into Two Parts: Those Who Know This And Those Who Do Not.

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

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

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

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.

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

Being A Mother Is An Attitude, Not A Biological Relation.

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

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

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

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

And Suddenly I Knew I Was People And Could Not Stop Laughing.

No Woman Ever Ages Beyond Eighteen In Her Heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

Boats And Ships Are Female Because They Are Beautiful, Lovable, Expensive And Unpredictable.

Marriage Is A Psychological Condition, Not A Civil Contract And A License. Once A Marriage Is Dead, It Is Dead, And It Begins To Stink Faster Than A Dead Fish.

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...

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

Secrecy Is The Beginning Of Tyranny

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

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

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

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

Hate Always Sells Well, But For Repeat Trade And The Long Pull Happiness Is Sounder Merchandise.

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

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.

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

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.

Must Be A Yearning Deep In Human Heart To Stop Other People From Doing As They Please. Rules, Laws - Always For Other Fellow. A Murky Part Of Us, Something We Had Before We Came Down Out Of Trees, And Failed To Shuck When We Stood Up.

Specialisation Is For Insects!

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

There Ought Not To Be Anything In The Whole Universe That Man Can't Poke His Nose Into-that's The Way We're Built And I Assume That There's Some Reason For That.

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.

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'.

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

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Sense Is Never Common.

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.

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.

But I Contend That The Disgusting Behavior Of Many Of Their Alleged 'holy Men' Relieves Us Of Any Intellectual Obligation To Take The Stuff Seriously. No Amount Of Sanctimonious Rationalization Can Make Such Behavior Anything But Pathological.

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

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

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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

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

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!

Democracy Is Four Wolves And A Sheep Voting On Dinner.

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.

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.

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society.

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

With Eternity To Draw On There Could Be No Reason For Hurrying - 'hurry' Was Not A Concept In Martian.

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.

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

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

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.'

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

I Counted To Ten Slowly, Using Binary Notation.

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

Each Generation Thinks It Invented Sex; Each Generation Is Totally Mistaken. Anything Along That Line Today Was Commonplace Both In Pompeii And In Victorian England; The Differences Lie Only In The Degree Of Coverup - If Any.

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Like Every Living Thing Its Prime Characteristic Is A Blind, Unreasoned Instinct To Survive.

Stranger In A Strange Land

Nothing Gives Life More Zest That Running For Your Life.

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.

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.

Always Store Beer In A Dark Place.

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.

Christ Was Crucified For Preaching Without A Police Permit

Stranger In A Strange Land

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

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.

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

Every Time We Killed A Thousand Bugs At A Cost Of One M.i. It Was A Net Victory For The Bugs. We Were Learning, Expensively, Just How Efficient A Total Communism Can Be When Used By A People Actually Adapted To It By Evolution; The Bug Commisars Didn't Care Any More About Expending Soldiers Than We Cared About Expending Ammo. Perhaps We Could Have Figured This Out About The Bugs By Noting The Grief The Chinese Hegemony Gave The Russo-anglo-american Alliance; However The Trouble With 'lessons From History' Is That We Usually Read Them Best After Falling Flat On Our Chins.

- 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.

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.

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

All Men Are Created Unequal.

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.

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

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.

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

When A Place Gets Crowded Enough To Require Id's, Social Collapse Is Not Far Away. It Is Time To Go Elsewhere. The Best Thing About Space Travel Is That It Made It Possible To Go Elsewhere.

The Best Thing About Space Travel Is That It Made It Possible To Go Elsewhere.

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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.

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

There Comes A Time In The Life Of Every Human When He Or She Must Decide To Risk ‘his Life, His Fortune And His Sacred Honor’ On An Outcome Dubious. Those Who Fail The Challenge Are Merely Overgrown Children, Can Never Be Anything Else.

I Don't See How An Article Of Clothing Can Be Indecent. A Person, Yes.

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

The Average Bloke . . . Hates And Fears All Freedom, Not Only For Others But For Himself, And Stamps It Out Wherever Possible.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Patriotism Is Not Sentimental Nonsense. Nor Something Dreamed Up By Demagogues. Patriotism Is As Necessary A Part Of Man's Evolutionary Equipment As Are His Eyes, As Useful To The Race As Eyes Are To The Individual.

[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.

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

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.

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.

A Child's Life Is Like A Piece Of Paper On Which Every Person Leaves A Mark.

In The Absence Of Clearly-defined Goals, We Become Strangely Loyal To Performing Daily Trivia Until Ultimately We Become Enslaved By It.

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.

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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

A Motion To Adjourn Is Always In Order.

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

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.

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

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

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

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.

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

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

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

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.

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

Sex Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

Nothing Uses Up Alcohol Faster Than Political Argument.

Violence Never Settles Anything Should Be Debated By The Ghosts Of Hitler And Stalin, With The City Fathers Of Carthage As Referees.

Death Isn't Funny." "then Why Are There So Many Jokes About Death? Jill, With Us — Us Humans — Death Is So Sad That We Must Laugh At It.

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

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

End Of The World

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.

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

Never Insult Anyone By Accident.

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

We Came Here For A Small, Informal Meeting. We Find You've Turned It Into A Circus. Well, If You're Going To Have A Circus, You've Got To Have Elephants.

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

The Moral Difference Between A Soldier And A Civilian Is That The Soldier Accepts Personal Responsibility For The Safety Of The Body Politic Of Which He Is A Member. The Civilian Does Not.

A "critic" Is A Man Who Creates Nothing.

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

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

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

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.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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

The Ethics Of Sex Is A Thorny Problem. Each Of Us Is Forced To Grope For A Solution He Can Live With - In The Face Of Preposterous, Unworkable, And Evil Code Of So-called 'morals.' Most Of Us Know The Code Is Wrong, Almost Everybody Breaks It. But We Pay Danegeld By Feeling Guilty And Giving Lip Service. Willy-nilly, The Code Rides Us, Dead And Stinking, An Albatross Around The Neck.

No Intelligent Man Has Any Respect For An Unjust Law.

Gentlemen, Let's Go Row!

Brainpower Is The Scarcest Commodity And The Only One Of Real Value.

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

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

Military Service

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

Cute Friendship

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.

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