Background Image

...

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...

-Robert A. Heinlein

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

There Has Grown Up

Robert A. Heinlein

...

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...

Views: 6

Topic

More From Robert A. Heinlein

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.

...more Than Six People Cannot Agree On Anything, Three Is Better And One Is Perfect For A Job That One Can Do. This Is Why Parliamentary Bodies All Through History, When They Accomplished Anything, Owed It To A Few Strong Men Who Dominated The Rest.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Stupidity Cannot Be Cured. Stupidity Is The Only Universal Capital Crime; The Sentence Is Death. There Is No Appeal, And Execution Is Carried Out Automatically And Without Pity.

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

Random Chance Was Not A Sufficient Explanation Of The Universe---in Fact, Random Chance Was Not Sufficient To Explain Random Chance; The Pot Could Not Hold Itself.

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.

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

Decency Is Not News; It Is Buried In The Obituaries - But It Is A Force Stronger Than Crime.

Television Leaves No External Scars.

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

Military Service

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

Anything Will Burn With Enough Gasoline And Dynamite.

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

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.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

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!'

Sense Is Never Common.

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

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

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.

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.

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

Learning . . . Is - Also An End In Itself.

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.

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.

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

More People Worry Themselves To Death Than Bleed To Death.

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."

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

When He Kisses You He Isn't Doing Anything Else. You're His Whole Universe, And The Moment Is Eternal Because He Doesn't Have Any Plans And Isn't Going Anywhere. Just Kissing You ... It's Overwhelming.

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

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

Duty Is A Debt You Owe To Yourself To Fulfill Obligations You Have Assumed Voluntarily.

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

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

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

"i've Found Out Why People Laugh. They Laugh Because It Hurts So Much... Because It's The Only Thing That'll Make It Stop Hurting" ... "but That's Not All People Laugh At." "isn't It? Perhaps I Don't Grok All Its Fullness Yet. But Find Me Something That Really Makes You Laugh Sweetheart... A Joke, Or Anything Else- But Something That Gave You A A Real Belly Laugh, Not A Smile. Then We'll See If There Isn't A Wrongness Wasn't There." He Thought. "i Grok When Apes Learn To Laugh, They'll Be People."

Democracy Can Survive Anything Except Democrats

When The Need Arises - And It Does - You Must Be Able To Shoot Your Own Dog. Don't Farm It Out — That Doesn't Make It Nicer, It Makes It Worse.

Geniuses And Supergeniuses Always Make Their Own Rules About Sex As On Everything Else; They Do Not Accept The Monkey Customs Of Their Lessers.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Physicians Had Gone To Their Graves Calling Pasteur A Liar, A Fool, Or Worse—without Examining Evidence Which Their “common Sense” Told Them Was Impossible.

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

There Are Things Which Cannot Be Taught In Ten Easy Lessons, Nor Popularized For The Masses; They Take Years Of Skull Sweat.

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

You're In Bad Shape When Your Emotions Force You Into Acts Which You Know Are Foolish.

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.

Faith Strikes Me As Intellectual Laziness.

In Handling A Stinging Insect, Move Very Slowly.

Magic Is Not Science, It Is A Collection Of Ways To Do Things Ways That Work But Often We Don't Know Why.

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.

If An Elderly Respected Expert In A Given Field Tells You That Something Can Be Done He Is Almost Certainly Right. If An Elderly Respected Expert In A Given Field Tells You That Something Is Impossible, He Is Almost Certainly Wrong.

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

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 Girl's Name Ending In 'a' - That Always Suggests A 'c' Cup.

Customs Tell A Man Who He Is, Where He Belongs, What He Must Do. Better Illogical Customs Than None; Men Cannot Live Together Without Them.

I'm Always Suspicious Of Disinterested Interest.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?)

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

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

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

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

But When They Began Handing Out Doctorates For Comparative Folk Dancing And Advanced Fly-fishing, I Became Too Stink In’ Proud To Use The Title. I Won’t Touch Watered Whiskey And I Take No Pride In Watered-down Degrees.

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.

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.

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

English Language

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

- 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.

Revolution Is An Art That I Pursue Rather Than A Goal I Expect To Achieve. Nor Is This A Source Of Dismay; A Lost Cause Can Be As Spiritually Satisfying As A Victory.

You Have To Give An Editor Something To Change, Or He Gets Fretful. After He Pees In It, He Likes The Flavor Better, So He Buys It.

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

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

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

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.

Contemplation Must Bring Forth Right Action In Order To Permit Further Growth.

Remember Though, Your Best Weapon Is Between Your Ears And Under Your Scalp -provided It's Loaded.

Spacemen Die If They Stay In One Place.

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.

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.

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

The Mind's Ability To Rationalize It's Own Shortcomings Is Unlimited; I Am No Exception.

It's Up To The Artist To Use Language That Can Be Understood, Not Hide It In Some Private Code. Most Of These Jokers Don't Even Want To Use Language You And I Know Or Can Learn . . . They Would Rather Sneer At Us And Be Smug, Because We 'fail' To See What They Are Driving At. If Indeed They Are Driving At Anything--obscurity Is Usually The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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.

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

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

Drop Dead-but First Get Permit

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Finish What You Start. Keep Submitting Until It Sells.

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

It Is Better To Copulate Than Never.

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Little Girls, Like Butterflies, Need No Excuse.

Mom And Daughter

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

The Early Worm Deserves The Bird.

Avoid Making Irrevocable Decisions While Tired Or Hungry.

Always Listen To Experts. They'll Tell You What Can't Be Done, And Why. Then Do 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 Also Think There Are Prices Too High To Pay To Save The United States. Conscription Is One Of Them. Conscription Is Slavery, And I Don't Think That Any People Or Nation Has A Right To Save Itself At The Price Of Slavery For Anyone, No Matter What Name It Is Called. We Have Had The Draft For Twenty Years Now; I Think This Is Shameful. 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!

A Motion To Adjourn Is Always In Order.

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

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

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.

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

Mind Your Own Business

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

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.

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

Never Underestimate The Power Of Human Stupidity.

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

God Split Himself Into A Myriad Parts That He Might Have Friends. This May Not Be True, But It Sounds Good, And Is No Sillier Than Any Other Theology.

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.

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.

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.

Oh, You Have To Charge 'em, Jubal. The Marks Won't Pay Attention If It's Free.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Certain Types Of Loudmouthism Should Be A Capital Offense Among Decent People.

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

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.

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.

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

Happiness Consists In Getting Enough Sleep. Just That, Nothing More.

People Simplify 'apollonian' Into 'mild', And 'calm', And 'cool'. But 'apollonian' And 'dionysian' Are Two Sides Of One Coin--a Nun Kneeling In Her Cell, Holding Perfectly Still, Can Be In Ecstacy More Frenzied Than Any Priestess Of Pan Priapus Celebrating The Vernal Equinox.

History Is Never Surprising After It Happens.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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'.

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.

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

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

Cute Friendship

I Was No Fool; I Was Aware That When Another Man Is Too Anxious To Force Money On One, It Is Time To Examine The Cards, For There Is Almost Certainly Something Illegal, Or Dangerous, Or Both, Involved In The Matter.

I Think The Major Problem In Growing Up Is To Become Sophisticated Without Becoming Cynical.

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

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

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.

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).

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

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.

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

Die Trying" Is The Proudest Human Thing.

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.

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.

Trending Author

Giotto Di Bondone

Mary Wortley Montagu

Category