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19896be
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Ben m'boy," Jubal said gently, "as a reporter you are hard-working and sometimes readable."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ecc25f9
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Another common error is to identify 'Apollonian' with 'good'--merely because our most respectable sects are all rather Apollonian in ritual and precept. Mere local prejudice.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7845a2d
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Need I point out that, despite the old saw about uneasy heads and crowns, it is nevertheless safer to be publicly a king than it is to be a pretender in hiding? A king can usually abdicate to save his neck; a pretender may renounce his pretensions but it makes his neck no safer--less so, in fact; it leaves him naked to his enemies.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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77ce19c
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If a word for a concept isn't in a language, then its culture simply doesn't have the referent the missing word would symbolize." "Oh, twaddle, Stinky! Animals fight--and ants even conduct wars. Are you trying to tell me they have to have words for it before they can do it?"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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30d559b
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Hell, was no military man; was computer technician who had bumbled into wrong field.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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c10b769
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A verbalizing race has words for every old concept . . . and creates new words or new definitions for old words whenever a new concept comes along. Always! A nervous system that is able to verbalize cannot avoid verbalizing; it's automatic.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1bdc378
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Religion is a solace to many people and it is even conceivable that some religion, somewhere, really is Ultimate Truth. But in many cases, being religious is merely a form of conceit.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f7d244a
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Minds me of a married woman who was very proud of her virtue. She slept with other men only when her husband was away.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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eee76ae
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But he described our shortcomings, physical, mental, moral, and genetic, in great and insulting detail.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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bed1221
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fed6516
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What a man doesn't know he can't spill if he is captured; neither drugs, nor torture, nor brainwash, nor endless lack of sleep can squeeze out a secret he doesn't possess.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ab6ed56
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Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?--TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic . . . but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature--a racial conviction that when one huma..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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120517e
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When you read about chemistry and physics, you want to do them too.
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education
experiments
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e49d127
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Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador.
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emotions-communication
self-discipline
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8ba2603
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More depended on the student than on the school.
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education
openness
maturation
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4c21a3f
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Everybody else specializes. Daddy knows everything, and he puts the pieces together.
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integration
expertise
openness
specialization
professionalism
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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afa12d1
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The Mother Thing makes our world.
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education
maturation
perspective
parenthood
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f932632
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have time to take out your soul and look at it.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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03c9a2f
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A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking. Commodore Arkwright realized that these tendencies are inherent and inescapable; he hoped to offset them a bit by setting up a course that could not be passed without original thinking.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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575fdad
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An infantryman can fight only if somebody else delivers him to his zone; in a way I suppose pilots are just as essential as we are.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9f4e603
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Think about it. Politics is just a name for the way we get things done ... without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody's head bashed in. That's politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in ... and that is what happens when one or both sides is no lon..
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understanding
politics
discourse
political-science
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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61d0eeb
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It is a region of high plains and of mountains, having limited fertility but esteemed for natural beauty. Its
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0a23faa
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Africa and Europe responded more sensibly but differently. Life has never been sacred in Africa and those who went sight-seeing on targets got little bleeding-heart treatment.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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15c9797
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The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can "prove" anything from it."
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religion-christianity
religion-and-philoshophy
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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18e131b
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Uh, all right. Boss, you're infuriating when you're logical!" "Yes, a most uncouth way to argue."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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617724f
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Jubal had long ago even foresworn pets, because he outlived them, or (worse yet) it was now possible that a pet would outlive him, be orphaned.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2cb2f49
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Richard, Bill has the socialist disease in its worst form; he thinks the world owes him a living. He told me sincerely - smugly! - that of course everyone was entitled to the best possible medical and hospital service - free of course, unlimited of course, and of course the government should pay for it.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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324204e
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I made a very important discovery at Camp Currie. Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you've ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don't need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to sack out in it and he's as happy as a worm in an apple--asleep.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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05215c0
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Here's to alcoholic brotherhood . . . much more suited to the frail human soul, if any, than any other sort.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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29078db
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Dress yourself in heavy fishing waders, put on an overcoat and boxing gloves and a bucket over your head, then have somebody strap two sacks of cement across your shoulders and you will know what a space suit feels like under one gravity.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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963f580
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There was a lot to be said for the job of assistant section leader--when you come right to it, it's a lot easier to die than it is to use your head.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8ce67bf
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anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0266c70
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a government is a living organism. Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive. You hit it, it will fight back.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8a2e5f1
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I know where I came from--but where did all you zombies come from? I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once--and you all went away. So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.
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loneliness
identity
missing-something
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5d3f405
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he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5ec98b1
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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c4b8ff1
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There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. 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..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fabec41
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intelligence" in the military meaning; a man in a suit can be just as stupid as anybody else--only he had better not be),"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e12e35c
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Winslow says I don't understand plotting and probably I don't - I have been congratulated many times on the skill shown in my plotting when I knew damn well that the story in question had not been plotted in advance at all. My notion of a story is an interesting situation in which a human being has to cope with a problem, does so, and thereby changes his personality, character, or evaluations in some measure because the coping has forced hi..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9332759
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Terra had climbed well beyond that which its
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d2a8f99
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Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4f8342e
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A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive--and nowhere else!--and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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057ec33
|
It is almost impossible to shake of one's earliest training. Duke, can you get it through your skull that had you been brought up by Martians, you would have the same attitude toward eating and being eaten as Mike has.
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nature
truth
nurture
upbringing
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1705996
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Any custom is man-made and is therefore a finite attempt to describe an infinity of relationships. It follows as the night from day that any custom necessarily has its exceptions.
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Robert A. Heinlein |