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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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The Two Highest Achievements

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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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.

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).

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.

It Is Said That God Notes Each Sparrow That Falls. And So He Does. But The Proper Closest Statement Of It That Can Be Made In English Is That God Cannot Avoid Noting The Sparrow Because The Sparrow Is God. And When A Cat Stalks A Sparrow Both Of Them Are God, Carrying Out God's Thoughts.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Take Big Bites. Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing.

Anything Worth Doing

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

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

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

Behind Every Mystery Lies Another Mystery.

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

My Old Man Says When It's Time To Be Counted, The Important Thing Is To Be Man Enough To Stand Up.

The Bugs Are Not Like Us. The Pseudo-arachnids Aren’t Even Like Spiders. They Are Arthropods Who Happen To Look Like A Madman’s Conception Of A Giant Intelligent Spider, But Their Organization, Psychological And Economic, Is More Like That Of Ants Or Termites; They Are Communal Entities, The Ultimate Dictatorship Of The Hive.

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

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 Tease An Old Dog; He Might Have One Bite Left.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Greatest Productive Force Is Human Selfishness.

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.

When Railroading Time Comes You Can Railroad—but Not Before.

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

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

Democracy Is Four Wolves And A Sheep Voting On Dinner.

It Is A Bad Sign When The People Of A Country Stop Identifying Themselves With The Country And Start Identifying With A Group. A Racial Group. Or A Religion. Or A Language. Anything, As Long As It Isn't The Whole Population.

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.

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.

Never Crowd Youngsters About Their Private Affairs - Sex Especially.

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.

For Me, Politeness Is A Sine Qua Non Of Civilization.

Butterflies Are Not Insects,' Captain John Sterling Said Soberly. 'they Are Self-propelled Flowers.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Were Probably Educated In The Conventional Economic Theories Of Your Period Which Were Magnificent And Most Ingenious, But--if You Will Pardon My Saying So--all Wrong.

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

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

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'.

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

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...

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Darling, A True Lady Takes Off Her Dignity With Her Clothes And Does Her Whorish Best. At Other Times You Can Be As Modest And Dignified As Your Persona Requires.

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

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.

He's An Honest Politician--he Stays Bought.

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

If A Grasshopper Tries To Fight A Lawnmower, One May Admire His Courage But Not His Judgement.

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.

Nothing Gives Life More Zest That Running For Your Life.

Every General Prohibition Creates Its Bootleggers.

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.

In Wilson's Scale Of Evaluations Breakfast Rated Just After Life Itself And Ahead Of The Chance Of Immortality.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Tilting At Windmills Hurts You More Than The Windmills.

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

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

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

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.

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

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.

If Tempted By Something That Feels 'altruistic,' Examine Your Motives And Root Out That Self-deception. Then, If You Still Want To Do It, Wallow In It!

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.

Men Are Not Potatoes!

Man Is Not A Rational Animal, He Is A Rationalizing Animal.

There Are A Dozen Different Ways Of Delivering Destruction In Impersonal Wholesale, Via Ships Or Missiles Of One Sort Or Another, Catastrophes So Widespread, So Unselective That The War Is Over Because That Nation Or Planet Has Ceased To Exist. What We Do Is Entirely Different. We Make War As Personal As A Punch In The Nose. We Can Be Selective, Applying Precisely The Required Amount Of Pressure At The Specified Point At A Designated Time. We've Never Been Told To Go Down And Kill Or Capture All Left-handed Redheads In A Particular Area, But If They Tell Us To, We Can. We Will.

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

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

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

Around The Time Of The Terran Caesar Augustus, A Martian Artist Had Been Composing A Work Of Art. It Could Have Been Called A Poem, A Musical Opus, Or A Philosophical Treatise; It Was A Series Of Emotions Arranged In Tragic, Logical Necessity. Since It Could Be Experienced By A Human Only In The Sense In Which A Man Blind From Birth Might Have A Sunset Explained To Him, It Does Not Matter Which Category It Be Assigned.

A Pacifist Male Is A Contradiction In Terms. Most Self-described "pacifists" Are Not Pacific; They Simply Assume False Colors. When The Wind Changes, They Hoist The Jolly Roger.

- 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.

A Monarch's Neck Should Always Have A Noose Around It. It Keeps Him Upright.

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

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

Nobody Ever Wins A Lawsuit But The Lawyers.

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.

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

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.

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

From My Point Of View, A Great Deal Of Openly Expressed Piety Is Insufferable Conceit.

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

He Should Have Known Better Because, Early In His Learnings Under His Brother Mahmoud, He Had Discovered That 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. Or So He Seemed To Grok. Short Human Words Were Never Like A Short Martian Word - Such As Grok Which Forever Meant Exactly The Same Thing. Short Human Words Were Like Trying To Lift Water With A Knife. And This Had Been A Very Short Word.

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

Price Of Freedom

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

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

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

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.

When You Vote, You Are Exercising Political Authority, You're Using Force. And Force, My Friends, Is Violence. The Supreme Authority From Which All Other Authorities Are Derived.

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.

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

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

The Shamans Are Forever Yacking About Their Snake Oil Miracles. I Prefer The Real Mccoy, A Pregnant Woman.

The Worst That Can Possibly Have Happened To Him Is Death And That We Are All In For---if Not This Morning, Then In Days, Or Weeks, Or Years At Most.

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

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

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

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 Without Love Is Merely Healthy Exercise.

Man Can Be Chained, But He Cannot Be Domesticated.

A Competent And Self-confident Person Is Incapable Of Jealousy In Anything. Jealousy Is Invariably A Symptom Of Neurotic Insecurity.

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

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

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

You Obviously Don't Know What An Old Man Of The Sea Great Wealth Is. It Is Not A Fat Purse And Time To Spend It. Its Owner Finds Himself Beset On Every Side, At Every Hour, Wherever He Goes, By Persistent Pleaders, Like Beggars In Bombay, Each Demanding That He Invest Or Give Away Part Of His Wealth. He Becomes Suspicious Of Honest Friendship--indeed Honest Friendship Is Rarely Offered Him; Those Who Could Have Been His Friends Are Too Fastidious To Be Jostled By Beggars, Too Proud To Risk Being Mistaken For One.

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

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

Cute Friendship

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

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.

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

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!

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

It Is Possible That The Percentage Of Honest And Competent Whores Is Higher Than That Of Plumbers And Much Higher Than That Of Lawyers. And Enormously Higher Than That Of Professors.

Belief Gets In The Way Of Learning.

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

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

Secrecy Begets Tyranny.

A "critic" Is A Man Who Creates Nothing.

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

War Is Not Violence And Killing, Pure And Simple; War Is Controlled Violence, For A Purpose. The Purpose Of War Is To Support Your Government's Decisions By Force. The Purpose Is Never To Kill The Enemy Just To Be Killing Him But To Make Him Do What You Want Him To Do. Not Killing... But Controlled And Purposeful Violence.

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.

Was There Ever A Time When The Majority Was Right?

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.

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'.

Specialization Is For Insects.

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

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

I Never Learned From A Man Who Agreed With Me.

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

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.

Why Don't They Make More Science Fiction Movies? The Answer To Any Question Starting, Why Don't They- Is Almost Always, Money.

Always Store Beer In A Dark Place.

The Killer Looked Up As The Bullet Hit Him. He Looked As If He Were Puzzled By Some Strange Occurence, Being Too Freshly Dead To Be Aware Of It.

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

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

A Long And Wicked Life Followed By Five Minutes Of Perfect Grace Gets You Into Heaven. An Equally Long Life Of Decent Living And Good Works Followed By One Outburst Of Taking The Name Of The Lord In Vain- Then Have A Heart Attack At That Moment And Be Damned For Eternity. Is That The System?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

If You Don't Like Yourself, You Can't Like Other People. -- Lazarus Long.

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.

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

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

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

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

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

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

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.

Peace Is An Extension Of War By Political Means. Plenty Of Elbow-room Is Pleasanter -- And Much Safer.

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

You Can Sway A Thousand Men By Appealing To Their Prejudices Quicker Than You Can Convince One Man By Logic.

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

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

Abstract Knowledge Is Always Useful, Sooner Or Later.

Sooner Or Later

"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.

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

Sense Is Never Common.

All Human Behavior, All Human Motivations, All Man’s Hopes And Fears, Were Heavily Colored And Largely Controlled By Mankind’s Tragic And Oddly Beautiful Pattern Of Reproduction.

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.

Small Change Can Often Be Found Under Seat Cushions.

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

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.

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.

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.

A Brute Kills For Pleasure. A Fool Kills From Hate.

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

Most People Can't Think, Most Of The Remainder Won't Think, And The Small Fraction Who Do Think Mostly Can't Do It Very Well.

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.

Rarest Of All Is The Man Who Can And Does Reason At All Times, Quickly, Accurately, Inclusively, Despite Hope Or Fear Or Bodily Distress, Without Egocentric Bias Or Thalmic Disturbance, With Correct Memory, With Clear Distinction Between Fact, Assumption, And Non-fact.

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.

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

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.

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

The Stone Trembled And Threw Herself Outward Bound, Toward Saturn. In Her Train Followed Hundreds And Thousands And Hundreds Of Thousands Of Thousands Of Restless, Rolling Stones . . . To Saturn . . . To Uranus, To Pluto . . . Rolling On Out To The Stars . . . Outward Bound To The Ends Of The Universe.

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.

Love Your Country, But Never Trust Its Government.

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.

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Tatiana Maslany

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