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fc4253c
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I'm not suggesting anything. People get hurt every day. This matter must be cleared up, Joseph, for everybody. The greatest good of the greatest number, as you are so fond of quoting.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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955fe0d
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One damn sure thing!--he wasn't going to let them be rough with that Smith lad. He was a nuisance, granted, but he was a nice lad and rather appealing in a helpless, half-witted way.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fe3cf44
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But as a matter of strict fact, did Agnes have any "maternal" in her? When she set her mouth that way, it was hard to see it. Oh shucks, all women had maternal instincts; science had proved that. Well, hadn't they?"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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72ddb14
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Her calculations were sometimes a little fuzzy, for the same reason that her checkbook sometimes did not balance; Becky Vesey (as she had been known as a child) had never really mastered the multiplication tables and she was inclined to confuse sevens with nines.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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6f4745d
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Becky Vesey always gave good advice and she gave it with great conviction because she always believed it.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4e1925e
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They were all three amazingly beautiful; they were also amazingly good secretaries. In Harshaw's opinion the principle of least action required that utility and beauty be combined.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d1f7dbf
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If you turn out to be useful as well as ornamental, you can stay forever.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2be580a
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In the course of nearly a century of gusty living he had been broke many times, had several times been wealthier than he now was; he regarded both conditions as he did shifts in the weather, and never counted his change.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fa2a7bb
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He did not expect reasonable conduct from human beings; he considered most people fit candidates for protective restraint and wet packs. He simply wished heartily that they would leave him alone!--all but the few he chose for playmates. He was firmly convinced that, left to himself, he would have long since achieved nirvana . . . dived into his own belly button and disappeared from view, like those Hindu jokers. Why couldn't they leave a ma..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0621190
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Harshaw had the arrogant humility of the man who has learned so much that he is aware of his own ignorance and he saw no point in "measurements" when he did not know what he was measuring."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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751095b
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It doesn't make sense. Or, rather, it makes just one kind of sense. Hanky-panky. Ben is as used to hanky-panky as a bride is to kisses. He didn't get to be one of the best winchells in the business through playing his cards face up.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ac70091
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Anne is so thoroughly indoctrinated that it doesn't even occur to her to infer that the other side is probably white, too. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't force her to commit herself as to the far side . . . unless she herself went around to the other side and looked--and even then she wouldn't assume that it stayed whatever color it might be after she left . . . because they might repaint it as soon as she turned her ..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f5f476f
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You're not privileged to call me 'Boss'; you're not tax deductible.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2e27a4c
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I wish we had somebody here who never would be missed. Regrettably we are all friends.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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6a8632c
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I think you were telling the truth, Jill. But a dream is a true experience of a sort and so is a hypnotic delusion.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4d6aa24
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Everything and anything about a culture can be inferred from the shape of its language--and
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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72a319e
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Being aware that he had but a short time to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in immortality, he purposed to live each golden moment as eternity--without
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8f7d81d
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Correct or not, he felt himself to be a useless pensioner, an impotent object of charity.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d6eb328
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Politics is not evil; politics is the human race's most magnificent achievement.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f8c20ba
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Mahmoud, sir. No, Doctor Mahmoud is not well. A--a slight nervous breakdown, sir." Van Tromp reflected that being dead drunk was the moral equivalent thereof."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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313a8ab
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Good!" the creature echoed. "Doctor Nelson will be along in a minute. Feel like some breakfast?" All four symbols in the query were in Smith's vocabulary but he had trouble believing that he had heard them rightly. He knew that he was food, but he did not "feel like" food. Nor had he had any warning that he might be selected for such an honor. He had not known that the food supply was such that it was necessary to reduce the corporate group..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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73bd1fe
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He knew vaguely that he did not want the nurse to die at that moment, even though it was certainly its right and possibly its obligation to do so.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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64f4924
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Ben Caxton, I will lie right here in the grass and starve before I will get up to push a button that is six inches from your right forefinger.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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6111eb7
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Want to back out?" Jill let out a long breath. "No. I've always wanted a life of crime. Will you teach me gangster lingo? I want to be a credit to you."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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be3df50
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In the fifteenth century the Pope deeded the entire western hemisphere to Spain and Portugal and nobody paid the slightest attention to the fact that the real estate was already occupied by several million Indians with their own laws, customs, and notions of property rights. His grant deed was pretty effective, too. Take a look at a western hemisphere map sometime and notice where Spanish is spoken and where Portuguese is spoken--and see ho..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2559eb9
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Smith felt distressed at the failure to respond in kind and interpreted it as failure on his own part. He realized miserably that, time after time, he had managed to bring agitation to these other creatures when his purpose had been to create oneness.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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deb3421
|
And that was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights' . . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f905621
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To support his austerely upholstered nest and its rabble staff he put forth minimum effort for maximum return simply because it was easier to be rich than to be poor--Harshaw merely wished to live exactly as he liked, doing whatever he thought was best for him.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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23c8e08
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What is 'truth'?" Mike asked. ("What is Truth?" asked a Roman judge, and washed his hands of a troublesome question. Jubal wished that he could do likewise.)"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9c7cab3
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Back to these young criminals--They probably were not spanked as babies; they certainly were not flogged for their crimes.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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cac3045
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A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom . . . and the other twenty percent isn't very important.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fdf83ed
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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--in fact, they're almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other. Both at once can produce unbearable turmoil--and
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7804f87
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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."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2202c76
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Duke, almost the only human characteristic Mike seems to possess is an overwhelming desire to be liked.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1924940
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My child, a true-confession story should never be tarnished by any taint of truth.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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3507fd7
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It took you long enough to answer your phone." "It's my phone, Mr. Secretary. Sometimes I don't answer it at all."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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59e02b1
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Either way, I have no wish to disturb a man sleeping in a gutter; I assume until proved otherwise that he belongs there.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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09a3ba4
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sometimes there just isn't any cure for a situation.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7f8da01
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Acting per se, like all art, is a process of abstracting, of retaining only significant detail. But in impersonation any detail can be significant.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9d9ca87
|
When a cat greets you, he makes a big operation of it, bumping, stropping your legs, buzzing like mischief. But when he leaves, he just walks off and never looks back. Cats are smart."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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b6c869e
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But, do you know, once you get used to it, it's rather cute. I mean, if a girl looks all right to start with, she still looks all right with her head smooth.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5baebac
|
Matt, you are suffering from a disease of youth--you expect moral problems to have nice, neat, black-and-white answers.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f6a9e45
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If I've reached the place where I'm a good influence on anybody, it's time I cultivated some new vices.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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20f0a3d
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She might get high enough to crash--no higher.
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Robert A. Heinlein |