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12e118e
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He was finding it ruinously expensive to be rich.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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da82d7f
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With just a touch more self confidence and a liberal helping of ignorance I could have been a famous evangelist.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d09fddd
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I refuse to grow younger. I came by my decrepitude the hard way and I propose to enjoy it.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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203668e
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We learned not to waste ammo even on warriors except in self-protection
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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445a838
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Nothing could go wrong because nothing had...I meant "nothing would." No - Then I quit trying to phrase it, realizing that if time travel ever became widespread, English grammar was going to have to add a whole new set of tenses to describe reflexive situations - conjugations that would make the French literary tenses and the Latin historical tenses look simple."
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humor
time-travel
science-fiction
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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721ade1
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Children seldom are able to realize that death will come to them personally. One might define adulthood as the age at which a person learns that he must die ... and accepts his sentence undismayed.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a80d106
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I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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95bfd63
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The Universe was a damned silly place at best . . . but the least likely explanation for its existence was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that some abstract somethings "just happened" to be some atoms that "just happened" to get together in configurations which "just happened" to look like consistent laws and then some of these configurations "just happened" to possess self-awareness and that two such "just happened" to be..
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evolution
creation
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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09ca067
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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. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose of the control. It's never a soldier's business to de..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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623d58f
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I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts... because its the only thing that'll make it stop hurting. But find me something that makes you laugh, a joke, anything--but something that gave you a belly laugh, not a smile. Then we'll see if there isn't wrongness somewhere and whether you would laugh if the wrongness wasn't there.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e957d4d
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Many problems can be solved by a man not frightened by them.
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fear
planning
strategy
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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b5d1cbd
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e7a3339
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When it don't rain, the roof don't leak; when it rains, I can't fix it nohow.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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e2bd209
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Thou art God.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ad3fb17
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My point is that one person is responsible, Always. If H-bombs exist--and they do--some man controls them. In terms of morals there is no such thing as 'state'. Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a7bcbf7
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Prof is right; more than three people can't decide anything.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4184583
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Is this Paradise?' 'I can guarantee you that it isn't,' Jubal assured him. 'My taxes are due this week.
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taxes
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fd5a291
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The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5ffb408
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I was no fool; I was aware that when another man is too anxious to force money on one, it is time to examine the cards, for there is almost certainly something illegal, or dangerous, or both, involved in the matter.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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694e1ff
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But when I see a black widow, I step on it; I don't plead with it to be a good little spider and please stop poisoning people.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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891179e
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You got the impression that he never needed to sleep - just ten-thousand-mile checkups and dust him off occasionally.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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1b7231c
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I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith--it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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f50c9fc
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Nothing gives life more zest that running for your life.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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4c93877
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Come Judgment Day, we may find that Mumbo Jumbo the God of the Congo was the Big Boss all along.
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religion
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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05c4a7e
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If I don't start having service I'm going to swap you all for a dog and shoot the dog.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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17386f3
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Thou art God'. It's not a message of cheer and hope. It's a defiance - and an unafraid, unabashed assumption of personal responsibility.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9fb4381
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Abstract design is all right--for wallpaper or linoleum. But is the process of evoking pity or terror, which is not abstract at all but very human.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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fe14ed5
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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.
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theories
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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34654d5
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Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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08831fb
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of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness...the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. T..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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7bde79b
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Must be a yearning deep in the human heart to stop the 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, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "fo..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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22bb2f3
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How is a sincere criminal, trying hard, going to get ahead in his profession if his victim fails to cooperate?
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criminals
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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5f53b45
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A little more money won't do you any good - because daughters can use up ten percent more than a man can make in any normal occupation, regardless of the amount.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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bb371b3
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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.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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bf35aef
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What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly . . .
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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d4dbc8b
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This very personal relationship, 'value,' has two factors for a human being: first, what he can do with a thing, its use to him . . . and second, what he must do to get it, its cost to him. There is an old song which asserts 'the best things in life are free.' Not true! Utterly false! This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because th..
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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85ba028
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An honest politician is one that stays bought.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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78357dc
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I was there to see beautiful naked women. So was everybody else. It's a common failing.
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women
beauty
failing
failings
nude
naked
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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3723842
|
My only regret involved the sad knowledge that I could not handle the amount of alcohol I would have enjoyed. "Easy is the descent into Hell."
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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56728f5
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Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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0594eb6
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one of the few things I've learned is that humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn--when they do, which isn't often--on their own, the hard way.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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a0cf000
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Because the world has gone nutty and art always paints the spirit of its times
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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ac6e597
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When railroading time comes you can railroad--but not before.
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Robert A. Heinlein |
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9d6634f
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This was the tragic fallacy which brought on the decadence and collapse of the democracies of the twentieth century; those noble experiments failed because the people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted . . . and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.
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Robert A. Heinlein |