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8c09a25
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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.
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price
value
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f144633
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Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst fault is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents - a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect?
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ab65827
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His was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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021e8bc
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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."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7f2ff11
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If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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92e2c68
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I scrolled on down to the obituaries. I usually read the obituaries first as there is always the happy chance that one of them will make my day.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7f68e99
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a54d637
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Damnit! Nationalism should stop at the stratosphere!
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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25a46f6
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Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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eb7e725
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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. The unlimited democracies were unstable because their citizens were not responsible f..
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politics
science
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8c18428
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lTyb@ wHdh l tkfy. l bd mn Hkm@ brd@ qsy@ llTyb@ ky tHqq lkhyr. lTyb@ bl Hkm@ tw'dy Htm l~ lshr.
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الطيبة
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9d8fde7
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Seems to be a deep instinct in human beings for making everything compulsory that isn't forbidden.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1937bd6
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Two bodies attract each other directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the square of their distance.' It sounds like a rule for simple physical facts, does it not? Yet it is nothing of the sort; it was the poetical way the old ones had of expressing the rule of propinquity which governs the emotion of love. The bodies referred to are human bodies, mass is their capacity for love. Young people have a greater capacity for love..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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eadb8ae
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Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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29a460b
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Then I glanced at the ring on my finger. The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. 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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fate
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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760e034
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Let's skip [Mobile Infantry] tradition for a moment. Can you think of anything sillier than being fired out of a spaceship with nothing but mayhem and sudden death at the other end? However, if someone must do this idiotic stunt, do you know a surer way to keep a man keyed up to the point where he is willing than by keeping him constantly reminded that the only good reason why men fight is a living, breathing reality? "In a mixed ship [men ..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f25a6ea
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Every general prohibition creates its bootleggers.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5e2d7ba
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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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bfa9b74
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Gratitude is a euphemism for resentment.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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16e2f8c
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I woke up in bed with a man and a cat. The man was a stranger; the cat was not
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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affb316
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A boy who gets a C- in 'Appreciation of Television' can't be all bad.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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05a1755
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All human behavior, all human motivations, all man's hopes and fears, were heavily colored and largely controlled by mankind's tragic and oddly beautiful pattern of reproduction.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d660511
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The trouble with conspiracies is that they rot internally.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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3d1c421
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Talking with a Martian is something like talking with an echo. You don't get any argument but you don't get results either.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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99303fb
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Audacity, always audacity - soundest principal of strategy.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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dbd2efa
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Oh, you have to charge 'em, Jubal. The marks won't pay attention if it's free.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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74caf3e
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I told you that 'juvenile delinquent' is a contradiction in terms. 'Delinquent' means 'failing in duty.' But duty is an adult virtue--indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. There never was, there cannot be a 'juvenile delinquent.' But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or more adult delinquents--people of mature year..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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dab2418
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The best things in life are beyond money; their price is agony and sweat and devotion
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f8a5db4
|
It's not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth -- but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it...but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying.
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lying
lies
truth
omissions
half-truths
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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8f669c4
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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.
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politics
leadership
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7082985
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A motion to adjourn is always in order.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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3bf604f
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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629aa5c
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Like every living thing its prime characteristic is a blind, unreasoned instinct to survive.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d736bcb
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Death isn't funny." "Then why are there so many jokes about death? Jill, with us -- us humans -- death is so sad that we must laugh at it."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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2261e74
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God forbid that I should ever be a good influence on anybody.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ede7e73
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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126c288
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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 unsu..
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victory-defeat
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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cbabeca
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I happen to be of an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman--which means I can be a real revolving son of a bitch when it suits me.
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sob
old-fashioned
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e56ad0e
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Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling - oh, Harshaw concluded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels. But simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost! (96)"
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f173316
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Must be yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0b04bd7
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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 bre..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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866fb6b
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Drop dead-but first get permit
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a1735d4
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The only religious opinion I feel sure of is this: self-awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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6d69572
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The way to find justice is to deal fairly with other people and not worry about how they deal with you.
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Robert A. Heinlein |