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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!

-Robert A. Heinlein

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What Are The Facts?

Robert A. Heinlein

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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!

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More From Robert A. Heinlein

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.

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

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.

Theology Is Never Any Help; It Is Searching In A Dark Cellar At Midnight For A Black Cat That Isn't There. Theologians Can Persuade Themselves Of Anything.

Sense Is Never Common.

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!'

Most Women Are Damn Fools And Children. But They've Got More Range Than We've Got. The Brave Ones Are Braver, The Good Ones Are Better - And The Vile Ones Are Viler, For That Matter.

There Is Solemn Satisfaction In Doing The Best You Can For Eight Billion People. Perhaps Their Lives Have No Cosmic Significance, But They Have Feelings. They Can Hurt.

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

Every General Prohibition Creates Its Bootleggers.

Churches Thrive On Martyrdom And Persecution.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Cute Friendship

Government! Three Fourths Parasitic And The Other Fourth Stupid Fumbling.

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

Every Law That Was Ever Written Opened Up A New Way To Graft.

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."

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Teaching Causes People To Go Into Situations From Which They Cannot Escape, Except By Thinking. Do Not Handicap Children By Making Their Lives Easy.

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

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

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.

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

Drop Dead-but First Get Permit

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

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

It's A Long Story. Want A Refill?" "no, Let's Start The Steak. Where's The Button?" "right Here." "well, Push It." "me? You Offered To Cook." "ben Caxton, I Will Lie Here And Starve Before I Will Get Up To Push A Button Six Inches From Your Finger" "as You Wish." He Pressed The Button. "but Don't Forget Who Cooked Dinner.

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

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

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.

It Was Equally Imperative That This Chain Of Reactions Should Always Tend To Dampen, To Die Out. It Must Not Build Up, Or The Uranium Mass Would Explode Within A Time Interval Too Short To Be Measured By Any Means Whatsoever. Nor Would There Be Anyone Left To Measure It.

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

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.

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

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).

Always Listen To Experts. They'll Tell You What Can't Be Done, And Why. Then Do It.

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

Liberty Is Never Unalienable, It Must Be Redeemed Regularly With The Blood Of Patriots Or It Always Vanishes.

Unalienable Rights

I Counted To Ten Slowly, Using Binary Notation.

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.

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.

If It Can't Be Expressed In Figures, It Is Not Science; It Is Opinion. It Has Long Been Known That One Horse Can Run Faster Than Another - But Which One? Differences Are Crucial.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

Mind Your Own Business

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

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

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

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

Military Service

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Being Right Too Soon Is Socially Unacceptable.

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.

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

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.

The Truth Of A Proposition Has Nothing To Do With Its Credibility. And Vice Versa.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When One Teaches, Two Learn.

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

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.

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

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

Cast Me Into A Dungeon, Burn Me At The Stake, Crown Me King Of Kings, I Can 'pursue Happiness' As Long As My Brain Lives - But Neither Gods Nor Saints, Wise Men Nor Subtle Drugs, Can Ensure That I Will Catch It.

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.

"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.

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

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

But, Do You Know, Once You Get Used To It's Rather Cute. I Mean, If A Girl Looks Alright To Start With, She Still Looks Alright With Her Head Smooth.

- 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.

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

Place Your Clothes And Weapons Where You Can Find Them In The Dark.

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.

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

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

Never Trust Machinery More Complicated Than A Knife And Fork.

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

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

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.

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.

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

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

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

Price Of Freedom

To Be Matter-of-fact About The World Is To Blunder Into Fantasy - And Dull Fantasy At That, As The Real World Is Strange And Wonderful.

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

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.

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

All Cats Are Not Gray After Midnight.

Most People Who Sneer At Technology Would Starve To Death If The Engineering Infrastructure Were Removed.

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!

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

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.

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

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

Logic Is A Feeble Reed, Friend.

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.

Some Logics Get Nervous Breakdowns. Overloaded Phone System Behaves Like Frightened Child. Mike Did Not Have Upsets, Acquired Sense Of Humor Instead. Low One. If He Were A Man, You Wouldn't Dare Stoop Over. His Idea Of Thigh-slapper Would Be To Dump You Out Of Bed — Or Put Itch Powder In Pressure Suit.

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.

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

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

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

My Folks Tried To Make A Preacher Of Me And Missed By A Narrow Margin… I Would Have Made A Good One If I Hadn’t Fallen Into The Fatal Folly Of Reading Anything I Could Lay Hands On. With Just A Touch More Self Confidence And A Liberal Helping Of Ignorance I Could Have Been A Famous Evangelist.

Self Confidence

He Had Learned That Close-held Secrets Could Often Be Cracked By Going All The Way To The Top And There Making Himself Unbearably Unpleasant. He Knew That Such Twisting Of The Tiger's Tail Was Dangerous, For He Understood The Psychopathology Of Great Power.

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.

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

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

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

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

Never Force An Idea; You'll Abort It If You Do.

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

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

Victory In Defeat, There Is None Higher. She Didn't Give Up, Ben; She's Still Trying To Lift That Stone After It Has Crushed Her. She's A Father Working While Cancer Eats Away His Insides, To Bring Home One More Pay Check. She's A Twelve-year-old Trying To Mother Her Brothers And Sisters Because Mama Had To Go To Heaven. She's A Switchboard Operator Sticking To Her Post While Smoke Chokes Her And Fire Cuts Off Her Escape. She's All The Unsung Heroes Who Couldn't Make It But Never Quit.

Pessimist By Policy, Optimist By Temperament- It Is Possible To Be Both. How? By Never Taking An Unnecessary Chance And By Minimizing The Risks You Can't Avoid. This Permits You To Play Out The Game Untroubled By The Certainty Of The Outcome.

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.

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

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.

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

God Is Omnipotent, Omniscient, And Omnibenevolent - It Says So Right Here On The Label. If You Have A Mind Capable Of Believing All Three Of These Attributes Simultaneously, I Have A Wonderful Bargain For You. No Checks, Please. Cash And In Small Bills.

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

Specialization Is For Insects.

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

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

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.

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

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

Stinky Says Women Should Be Obscene But Not Heard.

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

Ayn Rand Is A Bloody Socialist Compared To Me.

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.

"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."

...i Am Opposed To All Attempts To License Or Restrict The Arming Of Individuals... I Consider Such Laws A Violation Of Civil Liberty, Subversive Of Democratic Political Institutions, And Self-defeating In Their Purpose.

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

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

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

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

Sooner Or Later

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

A Touchstone To Determine The Actual Worth Of An "intellectual" - Find Out How He Feels About Astrology.

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.

An Animal So Poor In Spirit That He Won't Even Fight On His Own Behalf Is Already An Evolutionary Dead End; The Best He Can Do For His Breed Is To Crawl Off And Die, And Not Pass On His Defective Genes.

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 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.

There Are Two Ways Of Forming An Opinion. One Is The Scientific Method; The Other, The Scholastic. To The Scientific Mind, Experimental Proof Is All-important, And Theory Is Merely A Convenience In Description, To Be Junked When It No Longer Fits. To The Academic Mind, Authority Is Everything, And Facts Are Junked When They Do Not Fit Theory.

No Statement Should Be Believed Because It Is Made By An Authority.

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.

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

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.

Have You Ever Known Me To Be Rude To A Lady?" "i Have Seen You Be Intentionally Rude To A Woman. I Have Never Seen You Be Rude To A Lady.

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

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.

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'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.

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

I Wanted The Feeling Of Romance And The Sense Of Wonder I Had Known As A Kid. I Wanted The World To Be What They Had Promised Me It Was Going To Be - Instead Of The Tawdry, Lousy Fouled-up Mess It Is.

Work Is Not An End In Itself; There Must Always Be Time Enough For Love.

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

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

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

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.

The Earth Is Just Too Small And Fragile A Basket For The Human Race To Keep All Its Eggs In.

You Don’t Pay Back, You Pay Forward.

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

Never Appeal To A Man's 'better Nature.' He May Not Have One. Invoking His Self-interest Gives You More Leverage.

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.

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.

The Saddest Thing About Ephemerals Was That Their Little Lives Rarely Held Time Enough For Love.

A Human Being Has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature.

Roman Matrons Used To Say To Their Sons: 'come Back With Your Shield Or On It.' Later On, This Custom Declined. So Did Rome... (but Not Before It Created An Empire That Changed The World -em).

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

Writing Is Not Necessarily Something To Be Ashamed Of, But Do It In Private And Wash Your Hands Afterwards.

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.

Hit It! You Have To Hit It Harder Than That. Electrons Are Timid Little Things But Notional; You Have To Let Them Know Who’s Boss.

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

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James H. Douglas

James Branch Cabell

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