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b444845
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There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else. Jill Boardman encountered her personal challenge - and accepted it - at 3:47."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e6b2314
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I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may be his finest hour but it's not his choice.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f2a0220
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Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don't argue with it--especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1dd4961
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There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor" on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7312d88
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For millennia philosophers and saints have tried to reason out a logical scheme for the universe... until Hilda came along and demonstrated that the universe is not logical but whimsical, its structure depending solely on the dreams and nightmares of non-logical dreamers.
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philosophy
whimsy
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f5ac502
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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. Because not one of those people said: 'Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop.' Nyet, tovarisschee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them 'for..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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bddddf1
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Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything that didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ca751d9
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All three of us are prisoners of our early indoctrinations, for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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023f48c
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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28432f1
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Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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57616ad
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I'm a professional bad example. You can learn a lot by watching me. Or listening to me. Either one.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0e3c5ea
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Comrades, I beg you - do not resort to compulsory taxation. 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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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caff096
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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071915e
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There is no safety this side of the grave.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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716cf0d
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Well, I'll stick to the Old Testament, picking it to pieces usually doesn't upset people quite so much.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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89f988f
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stupid races don't build spaceships!)
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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b0072e3
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the trouble with "lessons from history" is that we usually read them best after falling flat on our chins."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2d1eb68
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Both for practical reasons and for mathematically verifiable moral reasons, authority and responsibility must be equal--else a balancing takes place as surely as current flows between points of unequal potential. To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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93ea111
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I don't pay attention to politics." "You should. It's barely less important than your own heart beat." "I don't pay attention to that, either." --
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2f462f3
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Dr. Jubal Harshaw, professional clown, amateur subversive, and parasite by choice, had long attempted to eliminate "hurry" and all related emotions from his pattern. Being aware that he had but a short time left to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in his own immortality, it was his purpose to live each golden moment as if it were eternity--without fear, without hope, but with sybaritic gusto."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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47778ad
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The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever . . . I know where I came from--but where did all you zombies come from?
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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c09364e
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I needed a space suit the way a pig needs a pipe organ.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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751cacd
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When there's nothing else you can do, breathe slower. There's no way it can hurt, and it might help.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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61e1df8
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A religion is sometimes a source of happiness and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong---and you are strong. The great trouble with religion---any religion---is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask in at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of rea..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9a76c99
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War is a simple matter compared with revolution. War is an applied science, with well-defined principles tested in history; analogous solutions may be found from ballista to H-bomb. But every revolution is a freak, a mutant, a monstrosity, its conditions never to be repeated and its operations carried out by amateurs and individualists.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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06aa8a2
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Anne is God. I am God. The happy grass are God, Jill groks in beauty always. Jill is God. All shaping and making and creating together.
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unity
beauty
god
grok
groking
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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34db290
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a friend who offers help without asking for explanations is a treasure beyond price.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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74d4379
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The universe will let us know--later--whether or not Man has any "right" to expand through it. In"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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c4a86a4
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I waited. Women talk when they want to. Or don't.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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cd8b56c
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They want to use him, make him geek.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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40f5034
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Basic truths cannot change and once a man of insight expresses one of them it is never necessary, no matter how much the world changes, to reformulate them.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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6df594c
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I don't know," he had answered grimly, "except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves 'social workers' or sometimes 'child psychologists."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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bdcda6b
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Once in a great while lips meet and two spirits merge for a time and the universe is right and complete and the planets wheel in their proper places. Once in a while the lonely, broken spirit of man is healed and made whole. For a while his quest is over and his questions are answered.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5a3dd1b
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The only constant thing in these shifting, fairy-chess worlds is human love.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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dec3adf
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Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded--here and there, now and then--are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7490ee0
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It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." --L. Sprague de Camp"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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25a8679
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The correct way to punctuate a sentence that states: "Of course it is none of my business, but -- " is to place a period after the word "but"."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d34feed
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Dorcas, you already reek like a Marseilles cat house; don't wheedle Mike for more stinkum.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a72e97e
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I've been broke even oftener than I've been wealthy. Of the two, being broke is more interesting, as a man who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from is never bored. He may be angry or several other things--but not bored. His predicament sharpens his thoughts, spurs him into action, adds zest to his life, whether he knows it or not.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ea23e12
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All right, all right, have it your own way! I can't prove I'm right--so I must be wrong. Men!
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5d975cc
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Harshaw was working as hard as he ever worked. Most of his mind was occupied with watching pretty girls do pretty things with sun and water;
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1646910
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All revelations are personal, that's why all revelations are suspect.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f991c11
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Remind me," Jubal said to her, "to write a popular article on the compulsive reading of news. The theme will be that 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. The title is 'Gossip Unlimited'--no, make that 'Gossip Gone Wild."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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34554a6
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The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily. "Nevertheless,"
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Robert A. Heinlein |