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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.

-Robert A. Heinlein

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You Obviously Don't Know

Robert A. Heinlein

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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.

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

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.

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

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.

Courage Is The Complement Of Fear. A Man Who Is Fearless Cannot Be Courageous. [he Is Also A Fool.]

Evolution Is A Process That Never Stops. Baboons Who Fail To Exhibit Moral Behavior Do Not Survive; They Wind Up As Meat For Leopards.

Girls Are Simply Wonderful. Just To Stand On A Corner And Watch Them Going Past Is Delightful. They Don't Walk. At Least Not What We Do When We Walk. I Don't Know How To Describe It, But It's Much More Complex And Utterly Delightful. They Don't Move Just Their Feet; Everything Moves And In Different Directions . . . And All Of It Graceful.

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.

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.

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.

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

Your Enemy Is Never A Villain In His Own Eyes.

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.

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

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

There Is No Way That Writers Can Be Tamed And Rendered Civilized Or Even Cured. The Only Solution Known To Science Is To Provide The Patient With An Isolation Room, Where He Can Endure The Acute Stages In Private And Where Food Can Be Poked In To Him With A Stick.

Since When Was An Emotional Argument Won By Logic?

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.

Civilians Are Like Beans; You Buy 'em As Needed For Any Job Which Merely Requires Skill And Savvy. But You Can't Buy Fighting Spirit.

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

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.

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

...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.

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

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.

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.

People Who Are Busy And Happy Don't Write Diaries; They Are Too Busy Living.

Anything Free Is Worth What You Pay For It.

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

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

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.

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.

Being Right Too Soon Is Socially Unacceptable.

I Think That Science Fiction Has A Distinct Therapeutic Value Because All Of It Has As Its Primary Postulate That The World Does Change. I Cannot Overemphasize The Importance Of That Idea.

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

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.

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

Specialization Is For Insects.

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

Goodness Without Wisdom Always Accomplishes Evil.

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.

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

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.

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

All Men Are Created Unequal.

Gratitude Is A Euphemism For Resentment.

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

Following Your Own Path

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.

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

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

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

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.

Faith Is Intellectual Laziness.

Intellectual Laziness

A Zest For Living Must Include A Willingness To Die.

An Armed Society Is A Polite Society. Manners Are Good When One May Have To Back Up His Acts With His Life.

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

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

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

To Assess The Intelligence Of A Committee, Divide The Iq Of Its Stupidest Member By The Number Of Members.

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

Any Government Will Work If Authority And Responsibility Are Equal And Coordinate. This Does Not Insure “good” Government, It Simply Insures That It Will Work. But Such Governments Are Rare — Most People Want To Run Things, But Want No Part Of The Blame. This Used To Be Called The “backseat Driver” Syndrome.

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.

I Don't See Why Human People Make Such A Heavy Trip Out Of Sex. It Isn't Anything Complex, It Is Simply The Best Thing In Life, Even Better Than Food.

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.

I Took Up Writing Because I Needed Money. And I Continued To Write Because It's Safer Than Stealing And Easier Than Working.

Money Is Truthful. If A Man Speaks Of His Honor, Make Him Pay Cash.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Nothing Of Value Is Free. Even The Breath Of Life Is Purchased At Birth Only Through Gasping Effort And Pain... The Best Things In Life Are Beyond Money; Their Price Is Agony And Sweat And Devotion... And The Price Demanded For The Most Precious Of All Things In Life Is Life Itself--ultimate Cost For Perfect Value

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A "critic" Is A Man Who Creates Nothing.

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

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

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

A Family Reunion Is An Effective Form Of Birth Control.

I Had Taken A Partner Once Before—but, Damnation, No Matter How Many Times You Get Your Fingers Burned, You Have To Trust People. Otherwise You Are A Hermit In A Cave, Sleeping With One Eye Open.

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

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

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.

Straining At Gnats And Swallowing Camels Is A Required Course In Law Schools.

Please Don't Invent A Debt That Does Not Exist, Or Next You Will Be Trying To Feel Gratitude - And That Is The Treacherous First Step Toward Complete Moral Degradation.

An Armed Man Need Not Fight.

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

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

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

Responsibility Cannot Be Shared.

I Believe In The Honest Craft Of Workmen.

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

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

Art Is The Process Of Evoking Pity And Terror, Which Is Not Abstract At All But Very Human. What The Self-styled Modern Artists Are Doing Is A Sort Of Unemotional Pseudointellectual Masturbation . . . Whereas Creative Art Is More Like Intercourse, In Which The Artist Must Seduce -- Render Emotional -- His Audience, Each Time.

Death Is The Lot Of Us All, And The Only Way That The Human Race Has Ever Conquered Death Is By Treating It With Contempt. By Living Every Golden Minute As If One Had All Eternity.

The Stars Incline, But Do Not Impel.

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

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.

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

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

You Can't Conquer A Free Man; The Most You Can Do Is Kill Him.

Tilting At Windmills Hurts You More Than The Windmills.

It's Better To Copulate Than Not.

"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.

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

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

Stranger In A Strange Land

There Is No Such Thing As 'social Gambling.' Either You Are There To Cut The Other Bloke's Heart Out And Eat It -- Or You're A Sucker. If You Don't Like This Choice -- Don't Gamble.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Circumstances Can Force Your Hand. So Think Ahead!

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Never Try To Outstubborn A Cat.

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!

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

A Community Where Everyone Is A Ruthless Murderer, With Handy Access To Death-dealing Devices, Is A Very Polite Community.

My Vocal Cords Lived Their Own Life, Wild And Free.

Everything Is Theoretically Impossible, Until It Is Done.

Impossible Things

Life Is Short, But The Years Are Long.

I See The Beauty Of Mike's Attempt To Devise An Ideal Ethic And Applaud His Recognition That Such Must Start By Junking The Present Sexual Code And Starting Fresh. Most Philosophers Haven't The Courage For This; They Swallow The Basics Of The Present Code--monogamy, Family Pattern, Continence, Body Taboos, Conventional Restrictions On Intercourse, And So Forth--then Fiddle With Details...even Such Piffle As Discussing Whether The Female Breast Is An Obscene Sight! (p.365)

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

There Are Perhaps 5% Of The Population That Simply Can't Think. There Are Another 5% Who Can, And Do. The Remaining 90% Can Think, But Don't

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.

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!

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

English Is The Largest Of Human Tongues, With Several Times The Vocabulary Of The Second Largest Language -- This Alone Made It Inevitable That English Would Eventually Become, As It Did, The Lingua Franca Of This Planet, For It Is Thereby The Richest And Most Flexible -- Despite Its Barbaric Accretions . . . Or, I Should Say, Because Of Its Barbaric Accretions. English Swallows Up Anything That Comes Its Way, Makes English Out Of It.

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.

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

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

...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.

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

Why Do Some People Act As If Making Money Offended Their Delicate Minds? I Am Out For A Legitimate Profit, And Not Ashamed Of It; The Fact That People Will Pay Money For My Goods And Services Shows That My Work Is Useful.

A Dying Culture Invariably Exhibits Personal Rudeness. Bad Manners. Lack Of Consideration For Others In Minor Matters. A Loss Of Politeness, Of Gentle Manners, Is More Significant Than Is A Riot.

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.

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.

Taxes Are Not Levied For The Benefit Of The Taxed.

Never Attempt To Teach A Pig To Sing; It Wastes Your Time And Annoys The Pig.

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

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.

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

Budget The Luxuries First.

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

Obscurity Is The Refuge Of Incompetence.

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.

History Is Never Surprising After It Happens.

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."

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

I Believe That Almost All Politicians Are Honest. For Every Bribed Alderman There Are Hundreds Of Politicians, Low Paid Or Not Paid At All, Doing Their Level Best Without Thanks Or Glory To Make Our System Work. If This Were Not True, We Would Never Have Gotten Past The Thirteen Colonies.

Ignorance Is Curable, Stupid Is Forever.

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.

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

Damnit! Nationalism Should Stop At The Stratosphere!

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

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.

Daughters Can Spend Ten Percent More Than A Man Can Make In Any Usual Occupation. That’s A Law Of Nature, To Be Known Henceforth As ‘harshaw’s Law.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There Is No Such Thing As Luck; There Is Only Adequate Or Inadequate Preparation To Cope With A Statistical Universe.

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

Price Of Freedom

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

Unalienable Rights

Beauty Is Not Diminished By Being Shared.

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

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

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

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

Violence, Naked Force, Has Settled More Issues In History Than Has Any Other Factor.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Every Congressman, Every Senator Knows Precisely What Causes Inflation... But Can't, [won't] Support The Drastic Reforms To Stop It [repeal Of The Federal Reserve Act] Because It Could Cost Him His Job.

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Orlando Aloysius Battista

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